


Tripping On Stars

by goldheartedsky



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Outing of Queer Characters, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Natasha Romanov, Brain Damage, Brock Rumlow Is A Dick Always and Forever, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Closeted Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Deaf Steve Rogers, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gay Bucky Barnes, Heavy pining, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jock Steve Rogers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Graphic Suicide Attempt, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, drug overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21938458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheartedsky/pseuds/goldheartedsky
Summary: When Bucky Barnes finds the school’s golden child, Steve Rogers, passed out and not breathing in the locker rooms from an apparent drug overdose, his world turns upside down. After performing CPR long enough for the ambulance to arrive, he struggles to understand how someone with everything going for him could throw his life away like that.Over the next few months, they grow closer and closer and Bucky starts to realize that maybe they’re both holding onto more secrets than either of them know.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 70
Kudos: 538
Collections: Stucky Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this was inspired by a couple pieces of media, mainly Jack Zimmermann’s backstory from ‘Check, Please!’, Euphoria, and Troye Sivan’s song “Happy Little Pill”. Nothing follows any of those too closely but I was just absorbing all of them a lot while coming up with this fic.
> 
> Thank you to everyone in the Stucky Bang discord for being my cheerleaders. I love you all a ton.
> 
> Please please PLEASE read the tags very carefully. There’s a lot in this fic.
> 
> Also, if you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please reach out to SAMHSA at 1-800-662-HELP (4357)

* * *

* * *

_Fall—Football._

Football means two-a-days and weights and chicken and more PRs and more chicken. Football means eating until he wants to throw up and barbells in his hands until calluses rip open. It means running and running and running and that shoulder ache that flares with every throw. Pills. Not the kind that make his heart race but the ones that keep his heart and muscles dull enough to forget what he’s doing to himself.

But fall means football and football means more weights and the pats on the back from his coaches when he’s done well and the cheering of the crowds that quiets the screaming in his head. Congratulations, you’ve made captain now. Breathe, Steve. You’ve done good.

Fall also means the start of the year and AP English Lit, Chemistry, and Bio, on top of the workload he brings home. It means late nights and more pills and hours of sleep before morning lifting and morning runs. He cranks out paper after paper for cash and blacks out for most of them. But it’s fine, it’s fine, he’s fine, really. Nothing two more oxy won’t fix. Nothing more sprints won’t fix. Nothing another win won’t fix.

Breathe, Steve. You’re fine.

_Winter—Wrestling._

Wrestling isn’t like football. Football means eating and wrestling means dropping twenty pounds and shoving his fingers down his throat on his knees in the bathroom stalls. It means that constant pang of hunger that burns him to the core as he tapes over the teeth marks on his knuckles before heading to the heavy bags. Wrestling means winning for himself, all the weight on his back, all the pressure on his chest. It means more Adderall to focus through the dehydration before weigh-ins. Wrestling means another shoulder flare up.

He runs outside until the snow is too deep for him to continue, and moves to treadmills inside. He drops under 170 for two weeks before he can get back to his weight class. The snow falls outside the windows as he hits another PR. Winter is for breaking school records and state records, for topping stats charts and the honor roll. His GPA hits 4.2 and he’s fine, really.

His mom asks when he’s going to get a girlfriend. College, mom, he wants to say. Too busy now. It seems too soothe her, to relax her worries. Mom, I’m not like that, he wants to reassure, but the pills have swallowed his tongue and all he does is shrug. All he does is pull vodka down from the top shelf and pass out in bed after he finishes four more essays. There are no spelling mistakes, not even when his mind has stopped working. He’s been doing this too long to make mistakes now. They’re proud of you, Steve.

Sleep.

_Spring—Lacrosse._

Lacrosse means sprints. Means sprints and six minute miles and sprints and six minutes of hell and more sprints. It means taking sticks to the stomach and shoulders and there’s that fucking ache again. Ice and two oxy, ice bath and more pills. Breathe, Steve, you’re the god damn captain now. You have responsibilities now.

Spring means doctors rooms where they ask if he’s hopeless or suicidal. I don’t know, he wants to say, I just got offers from Stanford and Harvard as a god damn sophomore, does that sound hopeless? I’m acing every test my teachers throw at me. I’m popping pills in the locker room and doing eight mile runs every morning before I even eat breakfast. Depressed? Hell no. He holds his breath and shrugs, massive shoulders stretching his body at the seams. “Sometimes,” he says in his head. “Sometimes I want to fill my mouth with a thousand dollars worth of Molly and just slip away.” He doesn’t remember what he actually says but suddenly he’s picking up a bottle of Prozac from the pharmacy.

Spring means life, doesn’t it?

It means days of mud and nights of cold sweat as he wakes up from withdrawals. Shoulder tape and ice baths and torn ligaments—he can feel it. Another win, another broken record, another trophy for his shelf. Lacrosse means a lost state championship and split knuckles from a dented locker door. You have responsibilities now, get your shit together.

Paranoia grows until he’s not sure if the voices in the halls aren’t the same as the ones in his head. It’s too dark out, too secluded for his mind not to wander. AP exams are two months away. He has to ace these classes, has to be ready for football camp in the summer, has to be the person his mother thinks he is. He spends nights at school out on the field, in the gym, lifting until his body gives out, and stays awake until morning writing finals papers. More cash, more drugs, more control. It’s fine, it’s fine, he’s fine, really.

It’s fine, just breathe, Steve, you’re fine, get your shit together, he’s fine, it’s fine, he’s _fine_.

Until he’s not.

~~~

Bucky Barnes doesn’t have his life together and it’s probably for the best. He’s pulling a decent 3.1 GPA, finally got his ceramics teacher, Mr. Shaw, to stop hating him after last semester’s kiln accident, and doesn’t have a car yet but Clint still drives them around in the old purple van from the 70’s. But he’s still not out to anyone but his two best friends and still needs tutoring in Trig if he’s going to pass this year.

And Trig is why he finds himself at school at almost 8:30pm on a Friday night. If this was an English or history test coming up, he’d be fine—could do it blindfolded even. But it had to be fucking Trig and it still didn’t make sense, even 4 weeks into the class.

“You’re fucking screwed,” Natasha says, closing the textbook. “Your only hope of passing this is to have someone wear a wig and take the test for you.”

He groans, frustrated. “Think Steve Rogers would do it? I’ve heard rumors that he’ll write papers for cash.”

“Steve? Absolutely not, that dude’s a fucking saint. Saw him at Sam’s house party two weeks ago and the guy didn’t even drink. Brought his own fucking water bottle and everything.” She puffs her chest out and mimics their classmate’s serious voice. “My body is a temple, blah blah Captain Rogers, signing off for a night of rice cakes and unseasoned chicken.”

Bucky snorts unintentionally, rolling his eyes as he says, “You’re a menace. Absolute garbage.” Steve Rogers was the golden child of the school—he made captain of the football and lacrosse teams as a fucking sophomore. The dude was fifteen years old and built like a college freshman and Bucky would be lying if Steve wasn’t the biggest thirst trap in the school. They weren’t friends (did Rogers even have any?) and they’ve barely said more than five words to each other in the eight years they’ve been in the same schools. Steve was cool and Bucky was not and he was fine with it.

“I’m serious, Steve is fine from the couple times I’ve hung out with him and Sam, but he’s almost a little too good to be true,” Nat says. “Nobody should be that smart, that talented, that nice, that cute, and _still_ single.”

“That’s because he’s absolutely exhausting. How do you keep up with him?” he says, pulling out his phone and shooting his mom a text. _I’ll be home in half an hour. Love you._ “Seriously, isn’t he going to like, MIT or something? On top of all the god damn sports he plays.” Natasha gives him a look, mouth turning up in a smirk. Bucky kicks her chair with his foot. “Shut up, don’t even say it.”

She pokes him in the stomach, chirping, “Your little crush on him is so cute. Shoot for the stars.”

“He’s so out of my league and _painfully_ heterosexual,” Bucky whines, pulling his messenger open. He dumps his trigonometry book and notes in there, flipping the flap back over. “Never fall for a straight boy.”

“Words of wisdom,” Natasha says, standing from the table and cracking her back. “Want me to drive you home? I can come in and say hi to Mama Barnes.”

“Absolutely not. You’re already on thin ice from the last time you dropped four f-bombs in the first five minutes you were there. Plus, I’m still not sure you won’t accidentally out me in front of my family.”

She gasps, clasping a hand to her chest dramatically. “I’d never. I rescind my offer for a ride.”

Ducking his head through the strap, Bucky swings his bag around to his back. “I brought my bike anyway. It won’t fit in your god damn Mini Cooper. I barely fit in there.”

“Have it your way, Barnes,” she grumbles, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. “Love you, babe. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” He watches her bound out of the empty study hall and down the staircase, her bobbing red hair disappearing. God, what would he do without Natasha? They’ve been best friends for almost a decade now, even if she _is_ dating Sam, star running back on the football team.

Fuck, it’s late.

He shuts the lights off and closes the door before heading down himself. The headlights from Nat’s car illuminate the halls as Bucky passes the front doors, heading toward the south end of the school and the bike racks. The school is completely deserted at this time except for old Mr. Fury in the principal’s office, nose buried in his laptop, jazz music playing loud enough to be heard through the window.

Bucky stifles a yawn and digs his keys out of his pocket, turning past the choir and drama rooms. He stops when he hears a soft rushing noise and followed by a loud thud. He looks back down the hall, a small crease forming between his eyebrows. The fuck? It gets louder as he takes a couple more steps toward the locker rooms and the roar of water gets more clear. Who the hell was showering this late at night?

“Hello?”

His voice echoes off the cinderblock walls and metal lockers. Steam pours from the showers at the end of the room as Bucky wanders through the benches and lockers.

“Hello?” he repeats, the running water getting louder as he gets closer. He passes a black T-shirt on the ground and an open duffle bag. “Is anyone in here?” Something crunches under his foot and his heart thuds as he pulls his foot back and sees a crushed pill among the half a dozen scattered across the floor.

The temperature seems to drop ten degrees and his skin feels like it’s crawling. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end as he swallows his stomach back down his throat. Bucky can feel every pulse of his heart as he takes slow, careful footsteps back through the locker room. He wishes Nat was still here. She wouldn’t be scared of what she was going to find; she would have told him there was nothing to worry about.

He sees the boy’s hand first.

His wet hand thrown out on the tile, the other arm twisted awkwardly underneath his stomach. The water pounds down on the boy’s bare back, soaking his dark blond hair and gym shorts. Bucky stares at him for what feels like an eternity before he realizes the boy isn’t moving and sirens go off in his head.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mutters, dropping to his knees and pulling his bag off. “Hey, man, are you okay?” He grabs at the boy’s arm, hand slipping on his wet skin as Bucky turns him over. Holy fucking _shit_.

Steve Rogers.

Steve’s usual fair skin and rosy cheeks have turned the palest shade of blue, lips going purple around the edges. His half lidded eyes are rolled back into his head as his head lolls to the side, body limp on the tile floor. Bucky’s hands drop from him, shaking as badly as his voice does as he says, “Steve? Steve, shit, wake up!” But Steve doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound, and it’s only then does Bucky realize his chest isn’t rising.

“Help!” he screams, fumbling his phone out of his pocket. The school’s empty, nobody is going to hear him. Dialing 9-1-1, Bucky turns the speakerphone on and kneels over the blond’s body as the ringing engulfs the shower.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the operator says after the call connects.

“I found—umm—I think my classmate passed out. He’s on the ground and he’s not moving or breathing, I think,” he stammers, feeling around Steve’s neck for his pulse. “I c-can’t feel a heartbeat, I don’t know.”

“What’s your location? We’re sending emergency services now. Just stay calm and I’ll walk you through CPR,” the operator says calmly, her voice steady and a sharp contrast to Bucky’s.

“I’m at Shield High School in Brooklyn. In the boy’s locker room,” Bucky says, pushing his phone a little further about the shower spray. “I saw some pills on the ground but I don’t know what they are.” He runs his wet hands over Steve’s face, searching for some sign of life. “Please wake up, _please_ wake up,” he whispers, words trembling as they fall through his teeth.

“EMS are on their way. Now, can I ask your name?”

“It’s B—It’s James. James Barnes.”

“Okay, James, I want you to take a deep breath and concentrate,” the operator says. “You’re going to need to perform CPR until EMS arrives. Are you willing to do rescue breaths?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he stammers. “I know him, it’s okay. Is it going to help him?” His mind is moving at a mile a minute. What were those pills? What the hell happened to Steve? Was Steve, Mr. Perfect Can-Do-No-Wrong, doing drugs?

Bucky’s stomach flips and tears flood his eyes as he comes back out of his own head listens to the operator explain how to do CPR. “You’re going to put the heel of your hand over the center of his sternum and put your other hand on top of your first,” she says as he does so, hands slipping a little on the water on Steve’s chest. “Now you have to press down at least two inches but no more than two and a half. Let his chest recoil all the way before you press down again, understand?”

“I’m going to hurt him,” he chokes, the words coming more like a sob than anything else.

“James, the doctors can fix a couple broken ribs but you need to keep him alive long enough to get him to the doctor.” Bucky sucks in a shaking breath and blinks back the water that’s beginning to drip from his hair. “You’re going to push down at a rate of 100 to 120 beats per minute for 30 compressions and then do two breaths, okay?”

“Y-Yeah, okay,” Bucky says, pushing down on Steve’s chest. It’s difficult, with the shower still coming down on them, water turning from warm to cool to cold as he leans down after a set of chest compressions and pinching the younger boy’s nose. He tips Steve’s head back and presses their lips together.

This isn’t how he pictured this in his head.

There’s only one thought in his head as Steve’s chest rises for the first time in who knows how long—keep him alive. It’s all on you, Buck. It repeats itself over and over as he cycles through compressions and breaths, water soaking his shirt and hair. It runs into his eyes and blurs his vision to the point that he can barely see Steve anymore. He knows the boy’s body now though, could find his mouth in a thunderstorm if it meant that he could keep Steve alive for a few seconds more.

Bucky’s body shakes with exertion, muscles in his arms cramping as he feels something crack in Steve’s chest. He can’t even hear the operator over his own heavy breathing. His hands slip again and a heaving sob tears out of his chest. “F-Fuck,” he cries. “S-Steve please, w-wake up.”

His mind goes dark and it feels like an out of body experience, like he’s watching everything happen through a TV screen. Bucky’s not sure how long he performs CPR, but he doesn’t stop until hands are pulling him off of Steve’s body, someone saying, “It’s okay, we’ve got this.” He tumbles back as the paramedics surround Steve, bags opening.

Everything feels numb as Bucky dissolves into full on sobs, too exhausted to do anything else. “I’m s-sorry,” he gasps, close to the point of hyperventilation. “I-I tried.”

“You did a great job, kid,” one of the medics says, turning the water off as they move Steve to a dry area. “Pull the Narcan,” he says, turning to the other medics. “Call in an opioid overdose, ten minutes out. Let’s get a bag and an AED on him before transport.”

Overdose.

The word rattles around in his head as Bucky watches the paramedics try and stabilize Steve. It didn’t make any sense. Steve had everything going for him—everyone loved him—he wouldn’t do this. But then he looks at the unconscious boy on the ground, paramedics doing CPR and drying him off to put an AED on him, and maybe Steve had a whole life that he was hiding away.

“Clear!”

Steve’s body jolts slightly, still immobile even after the shock. “There we go. Let’s get him on the board,” the lead paramedic says. “We’ll give him another dose of Narcan once we get him strapped in. Cassie, Matt, you two will trade bag shifts in transport.” They gently shift Steve onto a stretcher before lifting him onto the bed. “Any update on school staff?”

“Principal’s office was locked and empty,” a woman says as she attaches straps around the boy’s body. “We’ll have to get more info on the way.”

Bucky flinches when a gentle hand touches his shoulder. He looks up at the lead paramedic as they wheel Steve out and tries to keep from crying more. “It’s okay, son,” he says, “your friend is going to be okay. We’re going to need you to come in the ambulance, think you can do that?” Bucky nods shakily, fumbling for his bag and phone. “I can take those for you,” the paramedic says gently, taking both of them and handing him a blanket. “Can I ask your name?”

“It’s J-James,” he whispers, wrapping the blanket around his frozen body. Why is he so god damn cold? Water drips off his hair and his shoes make a squishing sound as he follows the medic down the halls, his numb legs carrying him out the parking lot and the waiting ambulance. Bucky sniffs quietly as they move the cot up into the truck, one of the female paramedics continuing to pump air into Steve’s body with a mask. Everything feels numb, like his body has stopped working and his blood has turned to sludge in his veins.

“Locked and loaded, everyone in,” someone calls and suddenly he’s sitting in one of the ambulance seats, arms wrapping the blanket even tighter around himself as he stares at the way Steve’s long lashes spread across his pale face.

“Patient’s name?”

“Steve,” Bucky mutters, watching his chest forcibly rise, the AED pads still stuck to his skin under the blanket. “Steve R-Rogers.”

“Do you know how old he is?” the lead asks. “It’s okay if you don’t know his exact birthday, we can try and find an ID in his bag at the hospital.”

He shakes his head, trying to clear his mind enough to remember when the summer party of the year always happened, everyone gathering to celebrate Steve’s birthday. Bucky had never been explicitly invited, but Natasha had dragged him to a couple of them. “His b-birthday’s July 4th, I th-think. He’s fifteen s-still.”

The lead paramedic and the woman with the bag give each other a look as he fills the information into a small computer. Too fucking young. Too fucking young to just be another statistic, to be another bright and shining star cut down from the heavens for taking too many drugs. Bucky doesn’t know how, can’t even begin to fathom a why, but somehow Steve ended up on this journey and he was there to catch him.

The ride to the hospital goes by in relative silence, the paramedics talking quietly about Steve’s condition and the medical treatment to keep him stabilized. They spray something into the blond’s nose and inject something into the thick muscle of his thigh. Bucky’s stomach flips again and the inside of the ambulance spins. “I’m going to be s-sick,” he whispers, head screaming with the sirens, and jumps when someone passes a bag attached to a plastic ring into his hands. Bucky nods, another tear slipping down his cheek, and stutters, “T-Thanks.”

The ambulance slows to a stop and the paramedics immediately fly into organized chaos. They take Steve out of the truck and wheel him off into the open bay doors, meeting a team of nurses and doctors. Bucky climbs down, legs giving out, and catches himself on the side of the ambulance. He loses sight of his classmate as the doors close and the wheeled bed turns a corner, but it doesn’t relieve any of the anxiety coursing through his body.

Steve was alive because of him and had now been dragged out of Bucky’s hands.

Who would save him now?

~~~

The nurses ask him question after question and he feels like an ice cube. His skin has risen, rough with goosebumps and the blanket is doing nothing to warm him. Where did he find Steve? Did he see Steve collapse? Did he know if Steve had substance abuse problems? Was there anything going around the school that might have caused this? Was Steve breathing at all when Bucky found him? Did Steve have any health problems that could’ve triggered this?

All he can whisper is, “I don’t know.”

Because it’s the truth, because it’s all he knows at this point. The person he thought he knew about was dead, replaced by a broken boy on a stretcher.

They let him sit in the waiting room, leg jiggling and picking at his nails until they bleed. His skin stretches and freezes like liquid nitrogen. His hair dries in odd places, sticking to the back of his neck and forehead like a vice. Someone coughs and it nearly sends him into a panic attack and Bucky just wants to ask the receptionist where Steve’s room is, even though he knows they won’t let him back there. He’s not family, only the boy that saved his life.

After the first hour, he begins to pace around the room, just to give his body something to do other than begin to eat itself alive. It’s almost 10pm. His anxiety is through the roof and there’s nothing he can do about it, not until someone tells him if Steve is okay.

The second hour, he begins to feel his exhaustion. It’s half an hour to midnight and Bucky’s been up since 6am, not to mention the eight minutes or so of CPR he did, according to the medics. His body aches and his back hurts and his mind is telling him to just shut up for five fucking minutes. Language, he hears his mother say in the back of his head and Bucky freezes, mid lap around the waiting room. Fuck, his mom.

His mouth feels like cotton as he stumbles to the waiting desk. “I need to call m’mom,” he says, words slurring together with delirium. “P-Please.”

The receptionist seems to take pity on him because suddenly he’s ushered into a room with a phone and his fingers are dialing his mom’s cell number out of sheer habit. It takes a couple seconds of the line ringing incessantly before she picks up with a worried, “Jamie? Is that you? We’ve been worried sick. Where are you?” Bucky tries to stay strong, he really does, but a sob breaks through the wall he’s been trying to keep up. “James, please,” his mother begs, “where are you?”

“I’m at the hospital, Mama,” he whimpers, the blanket scratching the back of his neck. “In the ER. There was an accident at school.”

“I’m coming.”

It takes fifteen minutes for his mom to come, rushing into the Emergency Department like the devil himself was chasing her. “Jamie,” she gasps, rushing into the waiting room and craning her neck to find her son. She spots him balled up in one of the chairs in the corner, head buried in his pulled-up knees, and spends no time rushing over. “Oh my god, Jamie, are you okay?”

He looks up at her, face pale and swollen from all the crying he’s done, and the dam breaks. Bucky dissolves into another rush of sobs, begging, “I’m s-sorry, M-Mama, I d-didn’t—I j-just f-found him.”

His mother pulls him into her arms, cradling his head against her shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s okay, just breathe. Calm down and tell me what happened.”

It takes almost five minutes for Bucky to be able to breathe again, let alone get any kind of structured sentence out of his mouth, but his mom is patient and combs the tangles out of his hair with his fingers until he’s ready to talk. “I was working on trig with Tasha and she left to go drive home. I went out the back to go get my bike and heard the showers running in the locker room. I stopped when I heard a thud and I—” He lets out a shuddering breath, remembering Steve’s crumpled body on the ground. “I went in and found Steve Rogers passed out. Mama, he wasn’t breathing and I didn’t know what to do. I called 9-1-1 and she told me how to do CPR.”

“Wait, Steve Rogers as in _the_ Steve Rogers? The one Becca’s always talking about?”

Bucky nods, trying to shake the image of his blue lips and rolled-back eyes out of his head. “They said—when the paramedics came, they said he overdosed. Mama, he doesn’t even drink, I don’t understand.”

Winifred brushes the last strands of hair out of her son’s face and sighs. “Baby, sometimes people aren’t who you think they are. Have they given you an update on him?” He shakes his head, pulling the blanket tighter. It’s his lifeline now—it’s all he has. “I’ll go talk to the receptionist. See if I can get any information.” She kisses Bucky’s forehead and heads to the intake desk.

The clock hands meet at midnight.

The receptionist looks up at Winifred as she approaches the window. “How can I help you, ma’am?”

“My son came here in an ambulance with another boy and they haven’t given him an update on his condition.” The receptionist opens her mouth in protest as the sliding doors rush and a petite blonde woman comes through, dressed in scrubs. “Please, his name is Steve Rogers and my son was the one who—”

“What did your son do to Steve?” a voice behind her shouts, making Winifred spin around and back up against the counter. The blonde woman looks around the waiting room and sets Bucky in her sights. “What did you do to my boy?” she screams, voice full of panic and rage as she descends on him. “Did you do this to him?! Did you give him those drugs?!”

Bucky shakes his head as she grabs at him, sinking down into the chair and sobbing weakly, “I t-tried to h-help him.”

“Take your hands off of my son,” Winifred says, pulling her back and putting her body between Bucky and the woman. “He saved Steve’s life; you should be thanking him!”

The woman tries to grab for Bucky again but the receptionist catches her arm. “Mrs. Rogers, please, we’ve been waiting for you,” she says, trying to separate everyone. “We can take you back to ICU and give you an update on your son’s condition.”

“Is h-he okay?” Bucky asks, wiping his eyes quickly and standing behind his mother.

Mrs. Rogers glares at him, tears in her eyes as she snaps, “Stay away from my son.” She turns and follows the receptionist through the wooden doors and down a sterile hallway, leaving Bucky alone with his worry.

His chin wobbles and his vision blurs as he thinks about Steve lying in the ICU, hooked up to machines in a desperate attempt to keep him alive. If only Bucky had gotten there sooner, maybe he wouldn’t have stopped breathing, maybe he would just be sick instead of on the verge of death. He startles when his mother touches his arm and feels a tear slip down his cheek. “Come on, James,” his mother hums gently. “I think it’s time for us to go home.”

He wants to fight it, wants to say that he’s not leaving until he knows if Steve is going to be okay, but he’s so goddamn tired that he can’t pick this battle.

He leaves the blanket on the chair and follows his mom out the front doors.

The cab ride back home goes by in complete silence, the adrenaline of the last four hours beginning to wear off. Bucky stares at the floor of the cab, eyes half lidded as he struggles to stay awake. His mother’s hands are warm around one of his own and he’s so grateful for her right now. If she wasn’t here, he might have stepped out into oncoming traffic just to quiet his mind.

The lights are off in their apartment when his mom opens the door. “Becca and your father were already asleep when you were supposed to be home,” she whispers, setting her keys down and taking off her shoes. “They don’t know anything’s happened.” Bucky makes a weary noise of acknowledgement and Winifred looks up at him worriedly. “You need some sleep. Come on, let’s get you settled in.”

“Will you stay, Mama?” he whispers, hollow and numb. “Until I fall asleep?”

It’s an old request—she hasn’t done it since he was six or so—but she still kisses his forehead and says, “Of course I will, sweetheart.”

He changes out of his jeans into shorts and doesn’t even bother brushing his teeth before he crawls underneath the handmade quilt on his bed. His mom knocks softly before coming in and sitting down up by his pillow. She smoothes her palm over his sweaty forehead and hums a soft lullaby, Bucky’s eyes slipping closed. His breathing hitches as sleep begins to take hold of him. “Mama…” he slurs, Steve’s pale face drifting through his mind as everything goes dark. “D’you think he’s gonna be okay?”

“I don’t know, Jamie. But you’ve done what you could.”

~~~

He sleeps for almost thirty hours before he wakes up, hair and blankets stuck to his face with sweat. He showers and lumbers into the living room to find Becca staring at him with wide eyes. “Is it true?” she asks, holding back tears. He nods and she immediately lets out a broken noise, covering her mouth.

Natasha comes over in the afternoon and they sit in silence on his bed until she finally says, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Yeah,” Bucky mutters, picking at the skin around his nails.

“I can’t believe Steve fucking Rogers had an overdose,” she says, dropping a leg over the side and swinging her foot. “You think you really know a guy and—”

“Tasha, please,” he says weakly, closing his eyes. “I really don’t want to talk about it. I’m already having a hard time thinking about going back to school. Mama’s letting me take the next week off but I’m sure everyone already knows what’s happened.” Natasha makes a short noise of affirmation and he sighs. “Ugh, I fucking hate this. But I really just hate not knowing if he’s okay.”

“Nobody’s given you an update?” Bucky shakes his head. “I’ll see if I can find out anything from Sam. He might know something, they are kind of friends, at least close to friends as Steve had.”

“Has,” he reminds her, but she’s already texting away with her boyfriend.

It takes almost half an hour before Sam texts back and just the small text notification popping up on Nat’s phone makes his stomach clench with anxiety. She reads the text and immediately pales. “Holy fucking shit,” she mutters, scrubbing a hand over her face. Bucky looks at her in panic and she motions to her phone. “Sam says Steve’s old lady called him yesterday asking if he knew that Steve was doing drugs. Told her that he hadn’t seen Steve take so much as a Tylenol. Apparently the dude’s in a fucking coma. Like, full on life support type coma.”

His bedroom spins as Bucky stumbles to his feet, falling toward the door and out to the hallway. He barely makes it to the bathroom before dropping to his knees and emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

Natasha leaves after two hours of petting his back as he lies facedown on his bed, muffling his sobs into his pillow. He’s all cried out by the time she’s gone though, sore and exhausted all over again. There’s nothing he wants more than to go to the hospital and beg Mrs. Rogers to let him see Steve, but she had told him to stay away from her son so that’s what he has to do.

Even if it kills him.

~~~

He sleeps on and off for the entire week, curled up in his bedroom. He ignores everything that Nat texts him about the drama going down at school and watches four seasons of The Bachelorette. His mom drops food off on his desk but otherwise doesn’t disturb him, knows that he needs his peace.

He misses the drug sniffing dogs and the assembly about opioid abuse. He sleeps through the visit from Principal Fury when the administrator walks his parents through the investigation going on at school. Star athletes and students just don’t do that there.

He has nightmares where his CPR fails and the paramedics can’t revive Steve. Has dreams about Steve waking up as their lips meet. Has nightmares about pills falling out of his open hands.

Bucky thinks about Steve more than he should.

~~~

_5 months later_

~~~

“You know, I think you finally need to get a boyfriend this year.”

Bucky shuts his locker and gives Natasha a look. “Yeah, I’ll just pick from the wonderful pool of openly gay applicants at our school which is, oh look, none,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Plus, I’m still not even fucking out. I don’t want to deal with that shit until I’m in college and out of the house.”

“You know, when I came out as bi—”

“Don’t want to hear it, Tasha,” he says, grabbing his backpack from the ground. “Nobody said shit about you because everyone’s terrified of you.” She punches him in the arm, proving his point. “In a good way,” Bucky promises as they head off down the hall.

They pass a couple students whispering to each other, heads swiveling to try and get a look at something. Bucky raises an eyebrow but can’t make out what they’re talking about. “Apparently I’m out of the loop,” he says as Nat turns to scope out the hall, walking backwards to keep up with him. “Wonder what’s going—oof!”

He runs dead straight into a hunch-backed boy and drops his book. Bucky’s just about to pick it up and snap at the kid when the boy in front of him raises his head and meets his eyes. Bucky’s heart stops dead in his chest and a breath punches out of him.

 _Steve_.

The younger boy’s jaw is set tight and there are dark circles staining the skin under his wide blue eyes as he stares back at Bucky. There’s a moment where he wants to reach out and touch the blond, just to prove he’s actually real, but he pulls his fingers back at the last moment. “You’re alive,” he whispers breathlessly, stomach dropping as Steve’s face twists into a scowl. He throws a shoulder against Bucky’s, knocking him out of the way as he stalks off down the hall.

Bucky is so dumbstruck that all he can do is stare as the other boy’s blond hair disappears around the corner.

“He’s _alive_.”

“Holy shit, was that Steve?” Natasha says, pulling him out of his stupor. “Sam said he wasn’t coming back this year. Had switched to homeschooling. I guess he changed his mind.” She continues talking but Bucky can barely hear her over the pounding rush of blood in his ears. Steve was alive—he was _back_ —and he had looked at Bucky like he was dirt under his shoes. “He looks like fucking shit,” she says.

He thinks back to the boy’s blue face and purple lips, eyes rolled back into his head as his lungs stopped working, and shakes his head. His mouth feels like cotton as he says, “No…you didn’t see him that night, Tasha. He looks…” Bucky’s voice fails him and he grabs his book to cover the near-slip. “Come on, I have to get to English.”

The class is in a buzz about Steve’s return to school as he wanders in and finds a seat in the far front corner. “I thought he was fucking dead!” “I did too, fuck! He’s got some balls coming back.” “Everyone knows about it. I heard that he called 9-1-1 before he passed out and that’s how they found him.” “Dude had enough drugs in him to put him in a fucking coma. What a fucking crackhead.”

He’s ten seconds from spinning around and telling every single person to shut the fuck up when suddenly the room goes quiet. He turns in his seat and looks toward the door.

Steve stands in the doorway, his large frame filling the space as he stares everyone down with hooded eyes. He grips his textbook tight across his chest and refuses to meet Bucky’s gaze, stalking into the room and dropping into a seat on the edge of the second row. His backpack hits the floor with a soft thud as Steve immediately crosses his arms across his chest, tucking his chin low.

Bucky almost looks away before he notices the blond glance at him out of the corner of his eye before digging into the pocket of his oversized hoodie and pulling the sleeves down over his hands. He offers Steve a soft smile and gets a dark and deadly glare in return.

The pit of guilt in his stomach burns brighter when he see Steve fumble with a dark purple coin.

The first half of class goes relatively normally, his teacher, Ms. Converse, discusses their summer book, The Grapes of Wrath. Bucky concentrates as much as he can but still finds his mind and his gaze wandering to the blonde boy across the room from him. Steve is still twisting the coin in one hand, the other clenched into a tight fist in his lap. There’s something stoic, something distant, about the way he stares at his desk, like he’s trying to go somewhere else in his head.

Bucky wonders where Steve goes, when he escapes from this life.

A metallic rattling noise makes Ms. Converse stop mid-sentence and Steve suddenly claps a hand down on his desk, stopping the coin from bouncing across the hard surface. She raises an eyebrow at him and everyone’s head swivels to watch him turn crimson. Ms. Converse sighs, motioning to his desk. “Steve, I know it’s your first day back, but—”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he mutters quickly, ears and cheeks flushing red. His fingers fumble with the coin but shake too badly for him to get it off the flat desktop. He ends up sliding it off and into his hand. His back heaves as he sucks in a heavy breath and ducks his head again, chewing on his lip. “I’m sorry,” Steve repeats weakly.

She nods and continues the lecture. Bucky thumbs through his book and looks back over at the younger boy as clandestinely as he can. He watches Steve spread his hands across his desk, watches the tremors that make his palms and fingers waver until Steve curls them into fists and tucks them back under the tabletop. Bucky feels almost guilty for watching him so much, but every time he turns away from the golden flush of his face, his mind goes back to blue skin and purple lips.

The second time Steve drops the coin is halfway into their forty minute essay time. It drops out of his hand when it jerks uncontrollably, sending the chip pinging across the tile floor. A couple of the students laugh, sharing looks between them.

Steve’s pencil falls from his hand as he scrubs the cloth-covered heels of his hands over his face and makes a desperate, frustrated noise in the back of his throat. Ms. Converse stands from the chair behind her desk and picks the coin up from the place it finally landed next to the trash can.

Her heels click across the floor as she crosses the room and pauses next to Steve’s desk. She takes a closer look at the coin and bends down, tucking it in his backpack. “I need you to find a less distracting way of concentrating in my class,” Ms. Converse whispers, putting a hand on his shoulder. Steve nods, face still hidden in his sweatshirt as he tilts his right ear closer toward her. “Just take a deep breath and try and finish,” she says. “You’re usually done by now.”

His breathing hitches loud enough for Bucky to hear it across the room.

~~~

Bucky doesn’t see Steve for almost three days. If he’s even at school, he’s dropped Ms. Converse’s English class because the desk at the end of the second row sits empty after the first class. He doesn’t say anything about Steve’s coin to Natasha but googles it anyway.

Results pop up for a 4 month sobriety chip from A.A. and a small smile flits across his face.

Steve was sober. He’s been sober for four fucking months. That means he’s been getting help and staying away from pills, but it doesn’t explain the shaking hands. Steve wouldn’t be having withdrawals this late. Bucky shoves his phone in his pocket as Clint and Natasha drop down at the lunch table across from him. “Hey, what’s up?” he mutters, digging into his chili.

“Clint’s trying to convince me to to try out for cheerleading,” Nat says before shoving half her cornbread into her mouth. “I told him absolutely not.”

“Okay, okay, hear me out though,” Clint says, adjusting his hearing aids to offset the noise of the cafeteria. “You took ballet for seven years so I know you can dance. I’ve also seen you do backflips off of literally any surface you can find. Plus, you’re dating Wilson so you can finally live out that ‘Football Captain dates Head Cheerleader’ high school movie trope we’ve all been dying for.”

Bucky pauses, spoon halfway to his mouth. “Steve’s not captain anymore?”

“Didn’t even make the team,” Nat says disinterestedly. “Sam said he came for tryouts but kept falling over himself. Couldn’t even throw the ball without dropping it.” She takes another bite and washes it down with an iced tea. “Coach thought he was doing drugs again and cut him.”

“He had a 4 month sobriety chip on Monday,” he says. “Dropped it in Ms. Converse’s class.”

The redhead shrugs. “I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I am still not trying out for cheerleading. I like my carbs too much.”

“Yeah, you ate, like, five bagels at my house this morning,” a voice says before another tray drops down at the table and Sam sits next to Natasha. He gives her a kiss on the cheek and chuckles when she feigns a groan of disgust. “Nice to see you too, babe.”

“What the hell are you doing sitting with us plebeians?” Clint asks, giving him a high five behind Natasha’s head. “You know there’s a whole group of those other football dickheads like 3 tables away.” They all look over at the loudest table in the room and Bucky rolls his eyes when he sees Brock Rumlow showboating about some fucking quarterback training he did over the summer.

“You couldn’t pay me to sit there,” Sam says. “I hate them just as much as you do.”

Another tray joins them as Steve slides onto the end of the bench. The conversation at the table dies as he ducks his head, picking at his crackers. He lifts his eyes and scans the table, stopping at Bucky. His jaw clenches and he accidentally drops a cracker on his plate as his hand jerks.

“Hey man,” Sam whispers, leaning in towards Steve’s right side, “you okay?” The blond nods quickly, trying to still his fingers long enough to pick up his spoon.

“You're looking good, Steve,” Clint says, trying to lighten the mood as he leans over the table to get a better look at the younger boy. “You’ve got this hobo-chic thing going on. Not quite goth, not quite emo. It’s definitely an upgrade from that jock look you had last year.”

Steve forces a thin smile but doesn’t look up at him. “Thanks,” he mutters quietly.

“You know, I’m almost sad Rogers got cut before even making the team,” Brock says from across the room, raising his voice to make sure their table hears him. “I would’ve loved to show Coach that I’m ten times the QB than that druggie loser is, but too bad he can’t even stay sober for a fucking tryout.”

Steve’s shoulders shudder and he lets out a frustrated breath as Sam says, “Just ignore him, he’s not worth it.”

“You should’ve seen him, Jack. Got twenty yards and fell flat on his fucking face; busted his whole face open. Tripped over his own two feet because he was so goddamn high—started slurring his speech too, it was fucking pathetic.” Bucky’s stomach clenches as an angry tear drops from Steve’s glassy blue eyes onto his plastic tray. “His fucking mom had to come get him. Pretty sure I saw him crying in her car.”

And that’s the final straw.

Steve stumbles a little as he stands, storming away from the table. Brock looks up at him with a shit eating grin when he makes it to the other table and all eyes are on them. Steve curls up his fingers to stop the tremors and tries to expand to his full size again. “You better shut your fucking mouth, Rumlow, before I shut it for you,” he growls, voice low and dark.

“I wasn’t saying anything to you,” the dark haired boy says, laughing to his friends.

In an instant, Brock’s lunch tray goes flying, crashing against the wall with a clatter. The surrounding students jump and go quiet. “I might have lost half my hearing,” Steve shouts, shoving him in the chest, “but I can still hear when you’re talking shit about me, you fucking asshole.”

Brock stands slowly, lips curling into a sneer, until they’re chest to chest and almost nose to nose. “You may have all these teachers and your pretty little mom convinced that you’re clean, but I saw you out there,” he says mockingly. “Once an addict, always an addict.” Steve’s eyes go dark and, for a second, Bucky thinks he might just slug Brock straight in the face. “Face it, Rogers, you’re just a fuck up and that’s all you’ll ever be.”

It’s enough to goad Steve into a sloppy swing, one that Rumlow ducks easily. He shoves the blond hard in the shoulder and laughs when Steve unexpectedly loses his balance, falling back over Jack’s outstretched leg. He careens back against the wall, hand and knee coming down into the spilled chili from Brock’s tray. The group of football players laugh as Sam huffs out a quiet, “Damn it,” and rises to his friend’s aid.

He offers a hand to Steve, pulling it back when the younger boy snaps, “I don’t fucking need your help!” Bucky watches Steve lurch out of the cafeteria, sick to his stomach as people beginto laugh uncomfortably.

Steve ducks down into one of the bathrooms and Bucky pushes his tray back, muttering, “I’m going to go get a drink from the vending machines. Be right back.”

“Get me a Coke, please!” Clint calls as he slips away from the table.

He passes the vending machines and water fountains and ducks into the bathrooms. He freezes in the entryway when he hears a rush of running water from a sink and it almost takes him back to the night he found Steve. But Steve’s not dead, only folded over the sink, trying to wash his hand and sleeve clean. The younger boy’s chest heaves as he stares at the water before lifting his eyes to meet Bucky’s. “What do you want?” he snarls, like a wild animal caught in a trap.

“You okay?” Bucky asks softly, taking a step forward. “I heard what—”

“I’ve seen you staring at me all the fucking time, you know,” Steve says coldly. “I don’t know if you think I owe you something for finding me that night, but you need to leave me the fuck alone.” He laughs, sharp and biting, when Bucky’s face falls. “Yeah, I know it was you. My mom told me everything when I finally woke up.”

Bucky’s a loss for words, mumbling, “I’m sorry about—I tried to do as much as I could, really.”

“And what? Are you looking for a fucking thank you card?” Steve spits. “You want me to dance around and thank you for saving my life? Because it’s never going to happen.”

The room spins and all he can do is nod, swallowing back down his heart as he turns back the way he came.

~~~

His stomach still hurts when Clint drops him off at his apartment building and Bucky makes some stupid excuse about having a migraine to his mom so she’ll let him just curl under the covers without being bothered. He knows he has homework to do, a paper to start for World History, but he has absolutely zero motivation to do so.

His phone buzzes on the bedside table and Bucky groans, smushing his face into his pillow.

He watches the hands turn around the clock until almost 5pm when there’s a soft knock on the door. “James?” his mother says softly, the hinges creaking as she sticks her head in. “There’s someone at the front door for you.”

“Is it Tasha?” he mumbles, pulling the quilt higher over his shoulders. “Tell her I’m sick.”

“No it’s—” She pauses, looking back out toward the living room. “Jamie, just come out, please. There’s someone who really wants to speak to you.” Bucky throws the quilt back and raises an eyebrow at her. If it wasn’t Natasha, then who the hell could it be? She tilts her head toward the front door and says, “Come on, up and at ‘em.”

Pulling on his shorts, he tugs his T-shirt back down over his abs and follows her down the hall. Their blue front door is cracked open and Bucky takes a deep breath before he pulls it open, the air getting caught halfway in his throat.

“Steve.”

The junior fiddles with his hands and shifts from side to side, cheeks flushing pink. He looks smaller than he did earlier, like all of the bravado he’s managed to keep appearances up has gone and he’s been left deflated. “Umm…hey….” he mutters before chewing on the inside of his lip for a second. “I just—I got your address from Sam. Well, Natasha I guess.” Steve’s eyebrows furrow and he swallows thickly. “I just wanted to say—what I mean is—I shouldn’t have yelled at you today at lunch,” he says quickly, like he’s still embarrassed about it. “I’m having a really hard time being back at school and I took it out on you.”

A small smile crosses Bucky’s face and the unease in his stomach begins to unknot. “It’s okay, really. What Brock was saying to you was really—”

“It doesn’t matter what Brock said,” Steve says, a little more forceful and more insistent. He hangs his shoulders and finally meets Bucky eye to eye. “Nothing he said means what I did to you was okay. And I’m sorry.”

“Umm…thanks,” he says before looking back in the apartment. “Hey, I know this might be a little weird, but do you want to come in? I think my mom’s making dinner and I know she’d love another mouth to feed.”

The blond blinks for a second, his breath catching like he wasn’t expecting it. “Are—are you sure it’s alright? I really can’t—” Steve stops, brow furrowing like he’s trying to remember something. “Can’t impose,” he says finally and takes a step back.

Bucky holds a hand out, saying, “No, no, it’s totally cool, watch.” He leans back and begins to holler. “Mama! Steve’s gonna stay for dinner, okay?!”

His mother’s footsteps come out of the kitchen and suddenly the door is ripped out of his grip. Winifred shoves her son aside and holds her hand out to the younger boy. “Winifred Barnes. You can call me Winnie or Mrs. Barnes, whatever you’re more comfortable with. And please, Steve, stay for dinner. It’s the least we can do.” Steve shakes her hand nervously and steps inside the apartment, looking around silently. “Dinner will be ready in about half an hour, boys. Steve, do you want anything to drink?”

He shakes his head, forcing a thin smile. “No, I’m okay, Mrs. Barnes, thank you.”

She returns his smile and hurries back into the kitchen. Bucky lets out a soft laugh and says, “Sorry, she can be a lot sometimes. We can hang out here or we can go to to my room if you want.”

Steve nods and mutters, “Your room is fine.”

Bucky knows he shouldn’t study the other boy as much as he does, but he’s fascinated by Steve’s almost too-stiff posture as he sits at the foot of Bucky’s bed, legs crossed underneath him, hands wrapped around his ankles. He looks around at the pictures tacked on the wall, the piles of books, and the miscellaneous sheet music on the floor and Bucky suddenly feels a little unsure about letting Steve in. “Sorry, it’s a bit of a mess.”

“No, it’s great,” Steve says, looking back at him. “It’s got…character, right? You have stuff in here that you like.”

“Your room isn’t like that?”

“It used to be, I guess,” he shrugs. “My mom cleaned a lot of it out when I was out of the house. Looking for stuff. I mean, I don’t blame her and completely get why she did it but…” Steve lets out a short laugh. “It was weird coming back to absolutely nothing, you know?”

Bucky sits up against the headboard and stretches his legs out, trying to avoid the other boy’s space. “How long were you gone?” he asks. “If you don’t mind telling me.”

“Three weeks in the hospital, four months in rehab,” Steve mutters, letting out a deep breath. “I just got back home a week before school started. I kind of still feel like I’m settling into my own bed, honestly.”

“Why were you in the hospital so long, don’t overdoses usually—” Bucky stops when he sees the blond duck his head, Steve worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. “Shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” he says quickly, tripping over his words. “It’s private, I didn’t mean to pry into—”

“It’s okay, James,” Steve whispers, closing his eyes and sighing softly. “I was—after you found me and they took me to the hospital, they put me on a ventilator. Pumped what they could from my stomach. They had me on dialysis and a bunch of meds because my kidneys started failing.” He swallows thickly and looks up at Bucky. “I didn’t wake up for about a week. They were surprised I even woke up at all. But my breathing had stopped so long that I had some brain damage.”

“Your hearing, right? I heard you yelling at Brock.”

Steve nods, bringing his trembling fingers up and touching his left ear. “Almost 90% lost in this ear, only 10% in my right. My coordination is all kinds of fucked too. Can’t run worth a damn, and you don’t even want to see me try and jump,” he says, almost joking as a smile flits across his face. “My hands are the worst though. If I can’t stay busy, they start to shake, see?” He holds both of his hands out and Bucky watches his long fingers quiver. “That’s why I learned to roll coins. Kept my fingers occupied and helped me focus a little.”

“Aren’t you like, on tract to be valedictorian though? I heard you got a fucking 30 on your ACT last year as a god damn sophomore.” He knows his voice sounds a little too reverent to be appropriate, but Bucky still feels his chest warm when Steve blushes a little.

“Yeah, I did—I was—but after my accident, I have a hard time concentrating,” the younger boy says, wrapping his hands back around his legs. “I can’t recall words as quickly, especially while writing. I’ve had to drop down a couple class levels because I haven’t been able to handle to workload. That’s why I’m not in Ms. Converse’s class anymore. I tried to write that essay the first day back and just _couldn’t_. I’m in Mr. Arnold’s English class now with a bunch of freshman.”

Bucky can feel his heart sink into his stomach and the back of his throat begins to burn. “That fucking sucks,” he whispers, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry I—I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner, maybe I could’ve—”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Steve doesn’t look at him and his voice is so quiet that Bucky can barely hear him. “I did this to myself; I took all those drugs, remember?”

A tear tracks down the sharp bridge of his nose and he reaches up to brush it away, but Bucky is quicker. He catches Steve’s wrist, thumb spreading his fingers open as he says, “You may have made some mistakes, but at least you’re here.”

Steve looks at their intertwined hands before he meets Bucky’s gaze and sucks in a shaky breath. “Yeah, I guess.”

They stare at each and Bucky has to imagine the way Steve’s eyes dart down to his mouth and he wets his too-dry lips. If this was a movie, if this was his fantasy, he could lean forward and kiss the blond boy, tangle his hands through Steve’s hair, but it’s not, so all Bucky can do is swallow back down his heart and offer a gentle smile.

There’s a knock on the door and it’s only then does Bucky realize he’s still holding Steve’s hand. He drops it right as his mom opens the door and says, “Okay, boys, dinner’s ready!” The younger boy gives him a smile, less forced and more real as he follows Bucky out of his bedroom.

~~~

Dinner is no less uncomfortable than Steve’s time in Bucky’s bedroom. His mother, God help her, doesn’t give up tryin to keep everyone upbeat and talking. “Becca just made the volleyball team, didn’t you dear?” she says, Bucky grinning as his younger sister turns pink and sinks lower into her chair. She had already broken a plate, dropping it when she saw Steve come out of Bucky’s bedroom, and had desperately been trying to hide her raging crush on him all night.

“Oh really?” Bucky teases with a smirk. “You didn’t tell me that. Maybe we’ll have to come to one of your games—ow!”

He’s cut off by a sharp kick to the shin underneath the table and Winifred shoots them both a glare before turning back to Steve with a beaming smile. “So what did you do this summer, Steve? Anything fun?”

He prods his lasagna with his fork before muttering, “Well, I just spent four months at inpatient rehab, so I guess that?”

Bucky snorts a little as his mother’s face pales and his father chokes on his beer. Steve catches him out of the corner of his eyes and the edge of the blond’s mouth curls up slightly. “Oh my god, I am so sorry, I really shouldn’t have—I am such a—” Winifred stammers.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Barnes,” he says, grin fading. “I figured since—since everyone here knew about my…” Steve’s voice fades as he looks around the table uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. It was a bad joke, I’m sorry.” He bounces his leg under the table and Bucky watches the tremor in the younger boy’s hand begin again. Steve’s fork clatters a little as he drops it on the table and tucks his hands under the table. “I did learn how to play cards this summer with a couple of people. Not very good, but…”

“Oh, James likes playing poker!” Winifred says, trying to bring the mood up again. Bucky groans and buries his head in his hands. “Oh stop it, Jamie. Maybe you could teach Steve some of your tricks!”

He blushes crimson and catches Steve’s hidden grin out of the corner of his eye.

They talk about what classes they’re taking, talk about Steve dropping all of his sports without going into his injuries, talk about Steve’s mom. Bucky finds out that she’s a nurse and works mainly night shifts so Steve doesn’t see her a lot.

“So you’re mother’s a nurse, what does your dad do?” George asks before finishing off his beer.

Steve stiffens and Bucky’s heart drops like a cement block into his stomach. The blond’s jaw clenches and he lets out an unsteady breath before he shakes his head. “My dad’s not around; he left when I was ten. I didn’t even know that he and my mom were fighting until I came home and he was packing up to leave. I tried to get him to stay but he just drove off anyway,” Steve mutters bitterly, staring into his half-eaten plate of food.

The table goes silent.

It made a lot of sense, the more Bucky thinks about it. Steve’s dad had walked out on him, leaving him to pick up the pieces and prove to the world that he wasn’t a waste of space. He had to be better, always better, and look where it got him.

There’s a small sniff and Steve wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand and clears his throat. “Um…Thanks for dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes,” he says, pushing his chair back from the table. “I really want to stay but I have to get to a meeting before it gets too late.” He doesn’t look at Bucky as he stands and goes to grab his jacket.

Bucky catches his mother’s eye and she gives him one of her famous looks, jerking her head in Steve’s direction. He groans low in the back of his throat and stands as well. “Steve, lemme walk you out, okay? It’s the least I can do.”

There’s a look of surprise on Steve’s face when he turns around, backpack slung over one of his shoulders. His blue eyes are wide and his ears are flushed the lightest shade of pink, but he doesn’t protest, only nods silently and allows Bucky to follow him out. Once out in the landing, Steve turns to him and murmurs, “Your family is really nice, James. You’re really lucky to have them.”

“They’re a lot sometimes, but they mean well,” he laughs as they head down the stairs.

Steve stumbles over a couple stairs and Bucky is polite enough not to ask if he’s okay.

They linger in the doorway for a while and part of him feels like, in any other circumstance, this would have been a date. The way Steve let Bucky touch his hand in his bedroom and the secret smiles at the table. But it’s not, of course it’s not like that. They barely know each other—they’re definitely not friends at this point—and, like always, Bucky’s getting ahead of himself whenever anyone gives him the slightest bit of attention.

Steve steps back out onto the stoop and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Umm, thanks for having me for dinner,” he mutters quietly, the tips of his ears turning pink.

Bucky leans against the doorframe and tries to shrug as nonchalantly as he can. “It’s really nothing. You’re always welcome here. I’m pretty sure my mom is already head over heels for you,” he says, hoping the younger boy doesn’t see through his deflection. Steve licks his lips and laughs a little, but doesn’t say anything. Bucky fumbles with his hands, deciding on sticking them in the pockets of his jeans. “You know, if you want, you can come over next Friday. Make it a weekly thing.”

Steve’s smile relaxes a little and he nods. “Sure, yeah,” he says. “That’d be cool. Thanks, James.”

“It’s Bucky, actually. You can call me Bucky.”

“Bucky.” It rolls off Steve’s tongue like he was meant to say it his whole life. “Thanks Bucky, I’ll see you around.”

He turns to head down the steps but Bucky grabs his arm, stopping him dead. Steve freezes, turning to him with wide eyes as he says, “I’m glad you’re getting help. Glad you’re getting better. I just wanted you to know that.” The blond’s big blue eyes reflect the setting sun and Bucky swears that he can see a ring of green around his blown pupils. His mouth suddenly feels like cotton as he lets go of the other boy’s arm and says, “Make it home safe after your meeting, okay? Text me?”

Steve’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows thickly, pulling a sharpie marker from the side pocket of his backpack and handing it to Bucky. “Here,” he whispers, “I need your number.”

Bucky uncaps the market and takes Steve’s shaking left hand when he offers it. He tries not to notice how the tremors seem to fade once his fingers uncurl the blond’s. There was no spark—his brain was just feeling what it wanted to feel. Bucky writes his number quickly, curling Steve’s hand back up when he’s done. “There,” he says. “Now you have no excuse not to text me.”

Steve flushes red and nods. “I gotta—” He takes a step back up into Bucky’s space and stops. “I gotta go catch my bus, but…I’ll see you soon.”

He hurries down the steps and down the sidewalk into the fading light, his right hand coming up to protect his left. To protect Bucky’s phone number and the red thread of contact they share now.

~~~

Bucky gets a text two hours later with a picture of Steve laying across his immaculately made bed with the words, _Home safe :)_ and it’s all he can do to keep from sighing desperately like a lovesick teenager. Okay, maybe that’s exactly what he already was, but the picture definitely doesn’t help.

He erases four different messages, _Looks comfy! Nice bed :) God, I want to kiss you._ and _Miss you already :)_ But because none of them are warranted, he settles for a, _Glad to hear! Night :)_

Steve texts back another smiley face and a sleepy emoji and Bucky is officially gone on this boy.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Steve makes good on his promise and begins coming home with him every Friday after school to stay for dinner. The first few times, he’s quiet and a little reserved, but Steve finally begins to open up. One Friday night, Bucky even hears him laugh for the first time which is the most glorious sound he’s ever heard.

The more time they spend together, the more Bucky realizes how much they have in common. They both listen to the same music, they both love to read, and they both love sports, even if Steve can’t participate in them anymore. He makes some joke about coming to all of Bucky’s track meets and Bucky spends almost the rest of the week thinking and fantasizing about Steve cheering him on.

But he’s still hiding that secret, the one only Clint and Nat know about, and it’s getting heavier and heavier until Bucky feels like it’s going to sink him right through the floor.

He doesn’t really expect Steve to ask about it until the moment it’s actually happening.

They’re at the local taqueria and he’s eaten way too much food, while Steve has barely picked at the two tacos he ordered. He’s halfway through his Jarritos when Steve nonchalantly asks, “So do you have a girlfriend?” Bucky snorts soda through his nose, choking a little as he tries not to drop the bottle. Steve laughs his perfect fucking laugh and hands him a couple napkins. “Sorry man, didn’t mean to startle you!”

He coughs again, sniffing guava flavored phlegm back down his throat, and waves his hand. “I’m fine, it’s fine, really,” he mutters, turning at least a couple shades of crimson.

“So I’m guessing that’s a no on a girlfriend?” Steve smirks, raising any eyebrow.

“No, never had one either,” Bucky says, wiping the table off quickly. “There was one girl in 7th grade that asked me out but I said no because the whole thing was just really awkward.”

“Why was it awkward?”

He freezes, napkin crumpling in his hand as he clenches it unintentionally. His heart begins to beat faster and faster, thudding high enough in his throat that he wonders if Steve can see it fluttering under his skin. His cheeks flush darker and his breath catches in his lungs. Bucky tries to laugh, tries to speak but the only sound that comes out of his mouth is a terrible squawk. He buries his face in his hands, desperate to just disappear, when Steve bites his lip to keep from laughing.

 _I should just tell him,_ he thinks. _We’re friends now, right? We’ve all got shit we’re dealing with._

Why did this never get fucking easier? Why was it so hard to admit out loud? It wasn’t like Bucky was ashamed, really. He just knew it was easier to stay in the closet, at least until he was out of the house and out of school and nobody could tell him that it wasn’t okay. Bucky takes a shaky breath and feels the tears burn his eyes. “I’m gay,” he mumbles into his palms, refusing to look at the other boy.

“What’d you say?” Steve asks quietly and his eyebrows are knitted together worriedly when Bucky lifts his head.

“I’m fucking gay, alright?” he says, voice cracking as his chin quivers. He swallows down a sob and wipes his eyes quickly. “I don’t like girls, I never have. That’s why I don’t have a fucking girlfriend, okay?”

Steve doesn’t move, doesn’t talk, only nods, allowing Bucky a minute to collect himself before muttering, “Hey, I’m glad you told me. It doesn’t make a difference to me if you’re gay, bi, whatever, okay?” He reaches out and puts a hand on Bucky’s trembling arm. “I’m not going to tell anyone if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Clint and Tasha already know,” Bucky says weakly, heartbeat beginning to steady itself again. “But that’s it. My parents don’t and neither does my sister.”

“Hey, we’ve all got secrets right?” Steve says, his stupid, genuine smile spreading across his face. “I know that probably better than anyone. I mean, I hid the fact that I was doing drugs for almost four years. Pretty sure being gay is on the complete opposite side of the ‘devastating secret’ spectrum.” Bucky breathes out a feeble laugh and tries to ignore the fact that Steve hasn’t removed his hand from his arm.

“Why did you start?” he asks quietly, stomach still flipping and not just from the sheer amount of food he’s eaten. “Since I just divulged my ‘devastating secret’, you know.”

The younger boy smirks a little and says, “You got me on that one.” Steve’s hand shakes a little on Bucky’s arm and he tightens it to keep steady, but Bucky’s heart begins to beat high in his throat again. “When I was in 7th grade, I made quarterback for the first time,” he says quietly, staring at the table between them. “It was about four weeks into the season and I felt something rip in my shoulder. It was a rotator cuff tear, I just knew it. I was so scared of getting cut from the team, having to sit the season out, that I didn’t go to the doctor.”

“You just got drugs.”

Steve nods. “I heard rumors about this kid, Alex Pierce? I think he’s a couple years older than you.”

Bucky knows Alex, well, in passing at least. Alex was a senior when Bucky was a freshman and was the worst kind of rich kid—too much time, too much money, and too much boredom. Selling drugs was just a fun game for him, something to piss off his parents and teachers who wouldn’t do anything but give him a slap on the wrist.

“So I started getting oxy from Alex. Helped my shoulder but I had a hard time concentrating. Couldn’t stay awake,” Steve says, finally pulling his hands back and placing them quickly in his lap. “So I started taking Adderall too. Sold papers and tests to help pay for the drugs and…well…” His face flushes and he tries to force a laugh as he looks up at Bucky. “That’s where you found me.”

“But you could’ve gotten it fixed during an off-season or something, right?” Bucky asks, shaking his head in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Steve’s smile wavers and his breath hitches. Bucky’s just about to tell him that it’s okay, he doesn’t have to explain himself, when the blond looks up at the lights and blinks back tears. “I just—” Steve whispers, voice cracking as it fails him. “I was better when I was on drugs. I was smarter, I was faster, I was funnier, it was all just easier. I stopped liking who I was without them because I wasn’t ever going to be good enough if I didn’t take them.”

A tear runs down Steve’s cheek and Bucky doesn’t even realize he’s on the verge of crying himself until he feels his throat clench. “Steve…”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” he mutters, shrugging it off like none of this matters. “I have to get used to talking about this stuff. My therapist says I need to work on being so closed off.” He goes quiet and begins to pick at his food. “It’s just hard adjusting to what I am now. Useless and fucked up and dumb as shit. Didn’t like myself then and it’s real hard to like myself now.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I kind of like this version of you a little better,” Bucky says quietly, his stomach flipping when Steve’s head snaps up, cheeks burning bright and clear. “You’re more...you now, I guess. You’re not hiding behind any of that bullshit.”

Steve lets out a broken laugh and rolls his eyes almost dismissively. “I can’t even fucking write a goddamn essay, Bucky. You’re telling me I’m better like this?”

“I’m telling you that you’re not some mindless robot now,” he snaps, kicking the blond’s leg under the table. Steve yelps but doesn’t try and fight him on it, only gives him an indignant look. Bucky shoves a finger in his face and says, “And you’re clean, which is a hell of a lot better to where I found you last March, passed out and half dead. So if you’re asking me if I like this version of you better? Fuck yeah, I _do_.”

For all his bravado, Steve says nothing. He just stares off at the wall with his jaw clenched tight. He takes a sullen bite of his taco and mutters softly, “You’re the first, then.”

“Then I’m the fucking first.”

Steve’s ears turn pink and another tear slips down his chin. “Lunch was great, Bucky,” he says as he grabs his jacket and begins to slide out of the booth. “I got to get to a meeting and then PT. Thanks for trusting me enough to come out to me.” He stops for a second, hesitating in some small way. His face softens and he leans in and touches Bucky’s shoulder with careful fingertips. “And thanks for giving a shit about me.”

Bucky’s hand comes up against his side, accidentally brushing Steve’s skin where his shirt had ridden up on his hip, and tries to ignore the spark that runs through his entire soul. “It’s what friends are for,” he whispers.

Steve swallows hard enough that Bucky can hear his throat audibly click.

“Yeah, friends.”

~~~

“How the fuck is Rogers beating all of us?”

“Because, despite the fact that I have mild brain damage, I’m still better at strategy than you,” Steve says with a grin, putting his final city down.

Natasha groans and tosses the rest of her cards on the table. “I give up, I’m locked out. Fuck you, Steve. Fuck Settlers of Catan. I hate this goddamn game,” she says, falling back dramatically on the floor.

“Stop sucking at it and you might like it a little more,” Sam laughs, moving his legs out of the way as she tries to kick him.

It’s Saturday night, close to 8pm already, and Steve and Bucky have been there since almost noon. They’ve just spent the day watching movies, playing video games, eating pizza, and brutally losing to Steve at Catan for hours. It’s nice to just unwind without worrying about anything going wrong.

Steve starts picking up pieces of the game, stacking them as best his shaking hands will allow, and Bucky grabs all the little pieces that would be too hard for the younger boy to grab. “You know, I’m gonna miss this,” Steve mutters, so quiet that Bucky almost doesn’t hear him. “When you guys go off to college, I’m gonna miss hanging out with all of you.”

 _Fuck_.

He hadn’t even thought about it. He, Natasha, and Sam were all seniors, but Steve still had this year to finish up and would be all alone for his final year. Bucky’s stomach flips and he nudges their feet together. “Hey, you can’t get rid of us that easily. Tasha’s going to Columbia and I’m staying here in the city at NYU,” he says, but Steve still doesn’t relax much. “Sam, where’d you end up accepting a scholarship to?”

“Brown. Nat’s going to be coming up to Rhode Island for the weekends, or so she says,” Sam says, cracking open a can of coke.

“Fucking Ivy League bastards,” Bucky laughs but Steve just ducks his head.

“I don’t know where I’m going to college, or if I’m even going at this point,” he says, the tremors in his hands getting worse. “I had all of my offers pulled because of my overdose so I don’t really know what I’m going to do.”

The table goes quiet and Bucky looks more surprised than Sam or Natasha does. Of course he’s the last to know. Sam was there after Steve’s accident and had to have told Nat what was going on, but Bucky came in at the end of the aftermath. He tucks a loose strand of hair from his ponytail back behind his ear and offers the sixteen year old a smile. “I think, after what you’ve been through, any college is gonna be lucky to have you. They’ll be able to see how hard you’ve worked to get here and will know how hard you’ll work there.”

Steve’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows thickly, his bottom lip quivering slightly. He nods shakily and whispers, “Thank you.”

“Okay enough of that,” Sam says, shoving the table away from the couch. “Nat picked ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ as the next movie because she is secretly a sap and not the hardass she presents herself as and—”

“ _And_ because Julia Stiles was, is, and always will be the woman of my dreams, thank you very much,” Natasha finishes, pulling down a pillow from the couch to sit on it.

Sam slides down next to her and Bucky half expects Steve to scoot over to the other half of the couch, but he doesn’t. He stays pressed up against Bucky’s side, leaning into his warmth as the movie starts up.

Halfway through the movie, Bucky’s half asleep until Steve roughly elbows him in the side. He jerks awake and looks at the other boy, hissing, “What the fuck man?” Steve’s face is bright red—even in the low light—and his arm jerks again, his eyes going distant for just a split second. Bucky’s eyebrows furrow as he whispers, softer this time, “You okay?”

The blond nods, pushing himself off of the couch and disappearing into the kitchen silently. Bucky can see his legs buckle a little before he turns the corner.

“I’m gonna go grab more pizza, anyone want some?” Nat raises her hand and Bucky slips into the kitchen, unquestioned. Steve is digging around in his backpack frantically, fumbling with pill bottles as he dumps the contents on the counter. He freezes when Bucky asks, “Steve, you okay?”

His hand jerks again, a bottle flying across the floor toward Bucky. “I forgot my meds for my seizures,” he mutters, struggling to get one of the pill containers open. “F-Fuck, I c-can’t—”

“Here,” Bucky sighs, grabbing a glass of water. “Let me help.”

Steve drops onto one of the barstools and doesn’t look at him as he says, “It’s the one that s-says Valproate. I j-just need one…” Bucky fishes one of the little pills out and tucks it into Steve’s trembling fist. The blond shoves it into the back of his throat and holds both of his hands out for the cup.

“It’s okay, I can—” Bucky leans across the counter and carefully tips the glass to Steve’s mouth. The younger boy’s eyes are hyper focused on his face as he gulps the water in silence. He has to be blushing—Bucky can feel his ears burning—and he might be a little bit hard for some God forsaken reason. But he tries to play it cool by clearing his throat and asking, “Why didn’t you tell me you had seizures, Steve? When you came over that first night and talked about everything else, why didn’t you tell me about that?”

“Because I’m embarrassed about it. Because they’re not noticeable as seizures unless you know what you’re looking for. Because I have them managed well enough that I didn’t think I had to tell you.” Steve’s voice is quiet and bitter and Bucky wishes he hadn’t asked in the first place. “Can we—can we just go back and watch the movie?”

Bucky nods and grabs a slice of pizza for show and another for Natasha.

He ends up giving her both and making some excuse about eating his in the kitchen.

Steve still sits close to him on the couch so Bucky knows he’s not mad at him but his heart still won’t stop beating hard and fast at the memory of Steve looking at him in the kitchen. At some point during the movie, Steve falls asleep on the couch, head tucked into his shoulder. Bucky knows he shouldn’t—shouldn’t allow himself to fall like this—but ends up letting his eyes slip shut too, cheek resting on the sixteen year old’s golden crown.

Neither Natasha nor Sam wakes them.

~~~

It takes a moment for Bucky to spot Steve in the hospital. But he sees the shock of blond hair and the broad shoulders and, God, he’s as recognizable as ever.

The sixteen year old’s hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat, face flushed as he folds over, hands on shaking knees. Bucky can see through the window that his chest is absolutely heaving and Steve looks about ten seconds from collapsing. One of the women comes up next to the blond and puts a hand on his shoulder, murmuring words that only Steve can hear, making him nod and wipe his dripping face.

Bucky taps on the glass gently, giving Steve a soft smile as the younger boy looks up at him. He soaks in the look of pure relief he gets in return as Steve sinks back onto a nearby bench, waving him in weakly.

The door is next to the window and the large room is full of quiet voices and reassurances and people struggling just as hard as Steve clearly was. Bucky kneels down in front of his friend and says, “Hey, you okay?” Steve nods and struggles to keep his eyes open, making Bucky push the damp hair out of his face. “Are you sure? You’re really out of it.”

“Hard session…” Steve pants, all but leaning into his touch. “Wanna go home, Buck…please…”

“Have you been cleared to go?” Bucky asks, looking around for a therapist. Steve nods, struggling to push himself up off the bench, and Bucky grabs his elbow to steady him. “Just hold on, Steve. Let me help you up.” He loops the other boy’s arm around his neck and helps Steve up to his feet, wrapping his arm tight around the blond’s waist. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Steve is unsteady on his feet and there’s no way he’d be able to get home on his own which, unsurprisingly, was likely the reason he asked Bucky to come get him. They barely make it past the front doors before he has to take a breather.

“Really took a lot out of you, didn’t they?” Bucky asks as they lean against a lamppost. “Is it like this every session?”

“Most of ‘em,” Steve murmurs, looking like he might just hurl on the sidewalk. “Especially when I don’t do my exercises like I’m supposed to.” He looks up and gives Bucky a look. “And don’t start in on me for that, please.”

“Wasn’t going to. Think you can make it to the subway or should I call a cab?”

“Subway. I can do it,” Steve says, gritting his teeth and righting himself. “I can fucking do it.”

That, however, is easier said than done. Bucky sighs in sympathetic frustration as Steve all but limps to the subway station, sweat beginning to pour down his face again. He’s overexerting himself but Bucky has no way of stopping him and he doesn’t want to start a fight over nothing, especially when it involves Steve’s injuries.

But he grabs the younger boy when they get to the top of the stairs, Steve swaying so much that he nearly topples over. His eyes are half-lidded when he turns to Bucky, body trembling as a tear leaks down his cheek. “Wanna go h-home,” Steve sobs, the weakness finally breaking through his show of strength. Bucky takes a step down and Steve shakes his head frantically. “Please—p-please don’t m-make me…”

“Steve, it’s just some stairs, you can—”

“Please,” he begs, knees buckling as he holds on to the top of the handrail. “C-Can’t, Buck. _P-Please_ …”

“Okay, okay,” Bucky murmurs, stepping back up to let Steve take hold of his arm again. “Let’s go find an elevator.”

It’s a bit of a trek but they make it down to the trains just in time to catch the G, Bucky dragging Steve through the doors right before they close. His eyelids droop and he sags against Bucky, mumbling incoherently as they drop down into two seats. The train lurches forward and the younger boy tips against him, leaning his head against Bucky’s shoulder. Steve’s voice is so quiet that Bucky can barely hear him over the rumble of the tracks as he whispers, “T-Thanks for coming to get m-me, Buck.”

He brings his hand up to brush the hair out of the blond’s face and says, “I’ll always come for you,” but Steve is already fast asleep.

This must be what it feels like to be in love. What it feels like to be so completely devoted to another person that you would do anything for them. It feels like a punch to the gut when he realizes that he’ll never truly have Steve the way he wants. They’re friends, nothing more. They’re never going to to be together and Bucky knows that, but that doesn’t mean he won’t enjoy the idea of it while he can.

So he rests his cheek on the top of Steve’s head like they did at Sam’s house, tracing over his knuckles with the pad of his thumb, and feels his heart beat high in the back of his throat.

Here he can pretend. Here Bucky can close his eyes and imagine a world where this would happen all the time.

They get to their stop and he pulls Steve off of his shoulder. “Come on, Steve, you gotta wake up. We gotta get you home.” The younger boy grabs onto his neck, still dizzy from exhaustion, and lets Bucky pull him up off the subway bench. Steve leans against him as they wait for the doors to open, forehead pressed against Bucky’s chest as he struggles to keep his eyes open. “We’re almost there, I promise,” Bucky says.

Steve’s apartment is in an old, broken down cement building out in Bushwick. It’s in a rougher area of neighborhood and nearly four cop cars go by in the two blocks it takes for them to get from the subway to the apartment complex. The younger boy’s face flushes red and he ducks away from Bucky’s gaze and part of him wonders a little if this is the first time Steve has had anyone over at his apartment before.

“It’s…nice…” he says as Steve unlocks the entryway door.

“No it’s not,” Steve snaps bitterly, still groggy with sleep. “You don’t need to pretend it’s something it’s not.” They start up the stairs, Steve struggling with every step. “It’s a…piece of...shit…” he pants between breaths as he nearly pulls himself up the metal stairway. Stopping on the second floor landing to catch his breath, he says, “But it’s the best my mom could afford when my dad fucked off for who knows where.”

“Have you heard from him at all since you were ten?” Bucky asks as they make their way up to the third floor.

“Not a…fucking…word.” Steve’s body begins to shake, either with exhaustion or pent up anger—Bucky’s not quite sure. “Don’t need him…anymore… Just fine…on my…own…”

Bucky wants to make some quip about Steve probably not being fine, considering the last few years of his life, but his mother raised him better than that. They end up on the fourth floor and Steve is just crying silent, frustrated tears as he fumbles with his key. After almost a minute of struggling to get his shaking hands calm enough to get the key in the lock, his arm jerks, keys flying against the door.

“ _F-Fuck_!” Steve shouts, slamming his fist into the doorframe, the thud echoing down the cement hallway.

“Steve, it’s okay,” Bucky murmurs, bending down to pick up the key ring. “I can help you, just relax.” The younger boy falls against the wall, struggling to stay upright as Bucky opens the door. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

Steve loops an arm around his neck and Bucky helps him limp inside. The apartment is small, most likely a one bedroom based on the Murphy bed tucked against one of the far walls of the living room. There are pictures of a bright and sharp-eyed child that he instantly recognizes as Steve hanging on the walls but they seem to stop at a certain point. There are a few more when Steve looks a little older, a little taller, but his smile is forced, the rage and pain hidden deep in his eyes. And then there are no more pictures.

No championship photos, no trophies, no academic awards. Nothing from the last three years of Steve’s life. It’s like it’s all been swept under the rug, like it never even happened in the first place.

There’s some shuffling as Steve leans against the arm of the couch, tugging his sweatshirt up over his head. His shirt comes off with it and Bucky’s mouth goes dry. Gone is the sixteen year old’s six pack and perfectly sculpted muscle but, God, Bucky has never wanted to touch anyone more. Steve’s stomach is soft, the slight rolls of skin padded with healthy weight, and silvery stretch marks wind up from his hips.

His mouth goes dry and he feels the flush begin to creep up from his chest.

Steve is too out of it to notice him staring, still shaking and face covered in tears as he struggles to pull his shirt back on. “You can g-go,” he stammers, looking up at Bucky and wiping his wet cheeks with his palms. “I gotta—gotta go—” His brow furrows and he motions to a door off the living room and Bucky can see the corner of a neatly-made bed peeking out.

“Sleep?” he offers with a grin, his smile fading when Steve numbly nods out of sheer exhaustion. “Well, come on, let’s get you into bed then.”

Steve’s room is like something out of the military. His covers are neatly tucked in, no clothes on the floor or papers on his desk, and nothing looks out of place. The walls are bare except for one, small Polaroid photo stuck into the cheap plaster with a thumbtack. Sirens go off in Bucky’s head when he realizes it’s a picture of the two of them asleep against each other at Sam’s house.

Natasha or Sam must’ve taken it when they were at Sam’s house a couple weeks back. Then Steve must’ve fought with his mom to be able to put something up on his walls and _this_ is what he wanted to have that fight over.

Him.

Holy _shit_.

His hand must tighten around Steve’s waist because the blond draws a quick breath. It wasn’t real, Bucky had to have imagined that. He swallows down his heart as he eases Steve onto the bed, the younger boy dropping onto his pillow with a pained grimace. Their hands brush together as Steve rolls onto his side.

“Do…do you need anything?” Bucky chokes out around a mouthful of cotton.

He shakes his head, burying his face in the fabric, and lets out a shaking, muffled sob. “M’fine,” Steve mumbles weakly. “Jus’ go…”

Bucky doesn’t want to leave. It’s the last thing on his mind and he can barely pull himself back enough to go out into the living room and close the door. Steve had a picture of them. He had a picture of them sleeping together on his wall and nothing else. Bucky’s not stupid, knows that Steve’s straight as they come, but, God, he can’t even imagine how lonely Steve must be.

An hour and a half later, the bedroom door creaks open again.

Bucky looks up from his phone from the nest of blankets he’s made himself on the lumpy, secondhand couch as Steve limps out of the bedroom. He’s changed out of his sweatpants and into a pair of shorts, K-tape wrapping around his thighs, knees, and ankles. Steve freezes, his eyebrows furrowing as he shakes his head. “What’re you doing here?” he mumbles, voice raspy and slurred from sleep.

Shrugging, Bucky sits up and shoves the blankets off his legs. “Didn’t think you should be left alone with how exhausted you were,” Bucky says, more confused than anything.

“But…you stayed.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“No one ever stays.” Steve seems to regret the words the moment they come out of his mouth. His mouth clamps shut and his face burns crimson and the mental wall goes back up.

Bucky watches as his left hand comes up, subconsciously or not, to cradle his right elbow. He wonders if Steve’s old injury is bugging him after PT but doesn’t expect the younger boy to tell him if it is. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Steve snaps, grabbing his right wrist with his left and pulling his arm across his chest, trying to stretch. It’s slow going and he’s breathing heavily before he’s even halfway there. Sweat clings to Steve’s temples and his teeth are bared as he tries to relax the injury. “Fucking PT. Fucking hate PT.”

“I’m sure they’re just trying to help you.”

Steve lets out a low groan, face twisted in pain as he clenches his teeth. He pulls his arm closer to his opposite shoulder, breathing heavily. “Fuck, this fucking hurts.”

Bucky huffs out a sigh and climbs off the couch. “Here, let me help.” He takes Steve’s shoulder and slowly presses the heel of his hand to the joint, his other hand against the side of the blond’s neck. Steve’s face pinches and he takes a sharp intake of breath. “Breathe, you gotta breathe, Steve.”

“Shut the fuck up,” the blond snaps, his eyes closing as he leans into Bucky’s touch. His shoulder stretches and he lets out another shuddering breath. They’re both quiet for a moment before Steve shakes his head and mutters, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Stupid fucking brain, stupid fucking impulse control.”

“At least you didn’t punch me,” he offers with a hesitant smile.

“Better hope I don’t suddenly have a seizure because I might,” the blond mumbles, the dark circles under his eyes even more evident as he ducks his head.

They both go quiet as Bucky gently tries to massage the swollen muscle of Steve’s shoulder. The younger boy lets out soft groans and hisses when Bucky accidentally pushes too hard on the joint socket. “Sorry,” he whispers, shifting his hand up toward the top muscle.

The clock in the kitchen ticks, keeping time with their unsteady breathing.

“I need—I need to tell you something, Bucky,” Steve mutters as he flexes his free elbow with a wince. “I haven’t…I haven’t been completely honest with you about my drug use and I just you to listen, okay?” Bucky nods, still trying to massage the knot out of the younger boy’s shoulder. Steve looks away and swallows thickly and it’s then that he realizes how close their faces are. “F-Fuck,” Steve stutters, pulling his bottom lip under his teeth. “Fuck, this is so hard.”

“It’s okay, Steve, you don’t have to—”

“No!” he shouts suddenly, body flinching under Bucky’s hands. “No, I need to tell you because you deserve to know what kind of person I really am.”

Bucky’s stomach clenches and he shuts his mouth.

It’s almost a minute before Steve finally lets out the breath he’s been holding and meets his gaze. “After my overdose, after my coma, I started using again the day I got out of the hospital,” he mumbles, eyes beginning to tear up. “I just…Everything hurt and I was still in withdrawal. I woke up screaming, Bucky, and I wanted to die. For the longest time, I wished I had just never woken up at all because I thought that was a better alternative for what I was going through.” Steve’s hands tremble as he reaches up and wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I wasn’t strong enough to deal with my old problems, let alone my new ones, so I called Alex again, got more drugs.”

“I thought you went to rehab, though,” Bucky says, eyebrows furrowing.

“I did, after I had another overdose.” He freezes and Steve stares at him, face flushed with shame. “It wasn’t like the one I had before, when you found me, but I had trouble breathing and really bad chest pain. My mom found me in the bathroom throwing up and took me to the hospital to get my stomach pumped. I was there for two days and she drove me straight from the hospital to the rehab center upstate. She didn’t even give me a chance to go home and get anything.”

“But you’re clean now, right?” Bucky asks, his fingers lingering on Steve’s chest. He’s doing it subconsciously at this point, twisting Steve’s shirt in his hands as his heart beats fast in his own chest. “You haven’t—”

“No, no, I wasn’t even allowed to take Tylenol during my therapy at the rehab center. They really helped, especially because I basically had to go through withdrawal all over again,” Steve says, finally pulling away from Bucky. His hands are shaking so badly that he crosses his arms and tucks them up into his armpits. “But that’s what you should know. That’s how much of a fuck-up I am.”

Bucky lets out a short breath and shakes his head. “You’re not a fuck-up, Steve. You keep saying that and I don’t—”

“Stop making excuses for me!” the younger boy shouts, the first of his tears beginning to spill down his cheeks. “You don’t have to keep doing that just to stop me from feeling like the piece of shit I am. I don’t want you to keep me around because you think you have some obligation because you saved my life. Just because nobody else wants anything to do with me doesn’t mean I want to force you into being my friend.”

It feels like a punch to the chest, right square in the center of his sternum. Bucky blinks a couple times and sets his jaw to keep it steady. “We are friends, Steve. You can’t get rid of me that easily, okay? I’m here because I want to be here,” he says firmly.

They stand off with each other for a minute before Steve’s shoulders sag in defeat.

“Steve, do you want me to stay?” he asks, taking a step forward and reaching his hand out. “I’ll go if you really want me to but I don’t think either of us want that.” His heart is beating so hard that Bucky can feel it behind his eyeballs. Steve’s eyes stay trained on him even as he takes another step closer. “Do you want me to stay?” he repeats.

Steve’s cheeks turn red as another tear slips past his eyelashes. He nods shakily, head barely moving as he shudders through an exhale. “Please don’t leave me,” Steve whispers and suddenly he looks like the lonely sixteen year old he truly is.

“Sit down, okay?” Bucky says, pointing toward the couch. “I’ll order us some pizza and we’ll watch a movie until your mom gets home. Just try and put all of this behind us, okay?” 

Steve sits on the couch warily but scoots closer when Bucky joins him and they’re almost hip to hip now. He tries to ignore the color that still hasn’t receded from the younger boys face and tries to ignore the way Steve keeps glancing at him out of the corner of his eye as they turn on some dumb movie.

Their hands brush together at one point and Bucky tries to ignore that too.

~~~

“Hey, are you sure you’re going to be able to do this?” Bucky asks as they wander around the stadium. Natasha is ten steps ahead of them with Clint, seeing who can get through a giant bag of kettle corn first. Their hands keep bumping together and Bucky keeps trying to chalk it up to his imagination, but Steve does keep glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s just a Homecoming party, Buck,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “And it’s at Sam’s house. I’ve got a stash of juice in the back of his fridge and I won’t eat or drink anything that’s been out.” He bumps their shoulders together and grins. “Plus, I’ve got the best babysitter ever.” Bucky lets out a quiet laugh and doesn’t say anything. Steve tilts his head and says, “Hey, I was just joking about the babysitting thing.”

“It’s fine, really, I just—” Bucky looks back toward Clint and Natasha continuing to eat their weight in popcorn. “I was just really hoping to have a little fun tonight. Maybe drink a little.”

Steve’s smile fades and guilt rises in the back of his throat.

“I don’t have to though, if it’s going to make you want to drink too,” he says quickly, ducking in front of the younger boy and halting them. Steve gives him a plaintive look and presses his mouth into a thin line. “Steve, the last thing I want to do is this threaten your sobriety,” Bucky says, reaching his hand out to rest on the blond’s stomach. “So if you don’t want me to drink, just tell me.”

“Two drinks,” he says finally, chewing on the inside of his lip as he looks up at Bucky. “Can you keep it to two drinks? That way you won’t get drunk but you can still have fun? I promise it’s not going to trigger me.”

Bucky breaks out into a wide grin and throws an arm over Steve’s shoulder, pulling him close. “Perfect. Let’s go get some seats before Tasha and Barton end up puking everywhere.”

They sit up at the front of the stands, crammed together on a cold metal bench. They’ve hit a cold snap and it’s cold enough that Bucky can see his breath fog up the air in front of their faces. He bites back a grin when he glances over and sees Steve’s nose and cheeks turning rosy from the cold.

A cheer erupts through the crowd when the school’s marching band starts playing and Natasha stands up in her spot, clapping and shouting as the football team comes running out onto the field. The cheerleaders come out and she steps out onto the railing, balancing carefully on the balls of her feet. “She’s fucking ridiculous!” Bucky shouts into Steve’s good ear as Nat begins to do the entire cheer routine with the cheerleaders while up on the rails.

Clint stands up and throws popcorn at her, screaming, “I told you you should’ve done cheerleading! Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Steve laughs, loud and bright and Bucky might fall a little more in love with him.

Halfway through the game, they’re up by 14 points and Bucky is frozen to the core. He probably should’ve worn a heavier jacket, but he honestly wasn’t expecting it to be so cold out.He’s shivering and bouncing his legs to try and stay warm, both of his hands squeezed between his thighs.

“You okay there?” Steve asks as he bumps their knees together.

“Y-Yeah, just fucking c-c-cold,” he stammers, grinning through numb lips. “Wish I h-had pockets.”

The blond sits up straighter, looking out of the stands and into the booths. “Hold on,” he says, standing up and climbing over Bucky’s and Natasha’s legs. “I’ll be right back, okay?” Bucky nods dazedly as Steve clambers down the metal steps and out of sight. Nat gives him a silent look and he shoots her one back, knowing exactly what she’s thinking. Bucky wore his heart on his sleeve and he could only hope Steve didn’t look too closely.

The stands jostle about five minutes later and Steve climbs down to sit next to him again, passing him a warm drink cup. “What’s this?” Bucky asks, gingerly taking a sip.

“Hot chocolate. Figured it’d be a good way to keep you warm.” Steve’s cheek flush a little as he gives a shy grin. “Something sweet.”

Bucky is thankful for the clatter of the band starting up again to mask the breathless squeak that comes out of his mouth. God, this is the worst. He should’ve listened to his own advice. Never fucking fall for a straight boy.

He clutches the hot chocolate close to his chest with his right hand and shoves his left back in between his legs and back into the warmth of his thighs. Steve raises an eyebrow at him and says, “Jesus, you’re still cold? Come here.” He grabs Bucky’s wrist and shoves both of their hands in the pocket of his coat.

Bucky’s breath hitches in his chest as their fingers twist together in the tight, warm space of Steve’s pocket. He wonders if anyone can see them, see them fucking holding hands, but they were tucked so tightly together on the bleachers that their shoulders were touching anyway. The football field spins and Bucky suddenly feels terribly dizzy. He has to tell Steve. He has to tell Steve how he feels. Not tonight—he can’t spoil the game and the party like that—but soon.

Steve turns and grins at him, wide and bright, and squeezes their hands together.

Bucky’s heart swells to the point of giving out.

Monday.

He’ll tell Steve on Monday.

~~~

Sam’s party is already going strong without him by the time Clint pulls up.

They all tumble out of the purple van and Clint shoves Natasha over, shouting as they run toward the front door, “Last one in has to do one of Wilson’s Jell-O shots!”

Sam scoffs and takes off after them, calling, “Fuck you, Barton! They’re delicious!”

Steve throws an arm over Bucky’s shoulder, making him jump a little, and pulls him close. “Clint’s right, you should probably steer clear of those Jell-O shots. I’m pretty sure Sam accidentally used Everclear instead of vodka,” he says, breath so hot against Bucky’s ear that it sends a shudder down his spine.

“I’ll—I’ll keep that in mind,” Bucky mutters as he swallows thickly.

He can hear the music before they even get into the house, pounding through the windows and doors. Steve still holds on tight to him as they slip through the front door. There’s drinks and dancing and so much talking that Bucky can barely hear himself think. He can see Natasha in the corner being hounded by a couple of the cheerleaders, probably asking her to show them some of her tricks, but Nat seems to be graciously entertaining them. He gives her a wave from across the room and she rolls her eyes with a smile.

Steve finally releases him and bounces off somewhere and Bucky’s never seen him like this. The younger boy is so happy, manic even, but it’s nice to see him smile so much.

Two hours later, Bucky is drunk.

Well…

Yeah, no, he’s drunk.

When Natasha had heard that he was only going to have two drinks at the party, she made it her mission to make him the strongest drinks possible. Bucky’s about 97% positive some of the leftover Everclear made it into whatever cup she passed him because the world is spinning.

He’s tucked in the corner of the couch, head lolling back against the headrest. The cushion sinks down next to him and Steve’s face comes into a hazy focus. A lazy smile crosses Bucky’s face as he slurs, “Hey, Stevie.”

Steve grins and says, voice loud over the music, “So you managed to get drunk off of two drinks, huh?” He nods and drops his head down on the blond’s shoulder. Bucky hums happily when he feels Steve’s fingers comb through his long hair, his nails scratching at his scalp gently. “You’re gonna fall asleep, aren’t you?” Bucky mumbles a yes and closes his eyes. Steve smells so good—like deodorant and chips and sweat and Bucky just wants to stay like this forever.

He must pass out for at least a little while because, when he finally can pull his eyelids open, he feels less drunk than he did before. “Water,” he croaks, trying to push himself out of the nest he’s made himself. “Gotta get water.”

“Come on, Bucky, lemme help you,” Steve says, standing and grabbing Bucky’s hand to help him out of the couch. “Think you can make it into the kitchen?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, I’m good,” Bucky insists, unaware of the fact that Steve hasn’t let go of his hand yet. He stumbles into the kitchen and sticks a clean red cup under the faucet, accidentally soaking his hand in the process. The cold water clears his head a little as he chugs it in one go. Suddenly Steve’s face is more clear in the bright light of the kitchen and he’s looking at Bucky intensely, his blue eyes dark and unreadable. It makes goosebumps rise on his arms and the back of his neck.

Someone ducks into the kitchen and breaks their moment, grabbing a couple beers of the counter. Steve tips his head toward the door with a wide grin and Bucky nods wordlessly, following him out.

He’s too drunk for whatever this is.

Bucky follows the younger boy out into the living room and lingers near the back wall, watching the party go on without them. “This is a fun party!” he shouts as Steve sidles up next to him. And then suddenly Steve is in front of him, boxing him against the wall with both of his hands at Bucky’s waist. It takes him a second to process what’s even happened and his mouth goes dry. “What…Steve, what’re you doing?”

The lights are low enough and the strobe is bright enough that all Bucky can see is the dark black of Steve’s pupils as they swallow up the bright blue of his irises. The music drowns our everything but the two of them and suddenly Bucky doesn’t mind anymore. The room spins when the younger boy reaches out and hooks a thumb into Bucky’s belt loop, a dangerous smirk flirting across his face. Bucky swallows down his tongue and falls back against the wall, pulling Steve with him.

His heart is beating at a speed that can’t be healthy or maybe it’s stopped completely—he can’t tell anymore. Their faces are so, so close and Bucky can even see the faded freckles on Steve’s crooked nose and the perfect little moles on the right side of his face. God, what is even happening.

“Bucky…”

He’s too drunk for this, he has to be, even if he only had those two drinks in he got here. But Steve is right in front of him, hand moving from his belt and up underneath Bucky’s shirt, running his warm hands over his stomach and hipbone. His mouth falls open and he lets out a shuddering breath. “S-Steve?”

Bucky’s head hits the wall and his legs spread to allow Steve the space he was always meant to occupy. His mouth is painfully dry as the blond leans in close enough to share a single breath with him and this can’t be happening.

“Steve...what’re—what are you d-doing?”

Everything about Steve seems to relax for the first time since Bucky has begun spending time around him. He sags and molds to a perfect fit against Bucky’s body, one hand curling around Bucky’s waist under his t-shirt and the other coming up to cup his jaw. An easy smile spreads across Steve’s face and it’s so real that it almost breaks Bucky’s heart. He can barely hear the blond’s voice over the music but it rings clear all the same. “Bucky…you’re the only person who’s ever truly seen me.”

His tongue darts out to wet his lips and all Bucky can breathe is a desperate, “Please tell me this isn’t all a dream.”

The only answer he gets is the glorious press of Steve’s mouth against his. Bucky lets out a broken gasp and his eyes flutter shut when Steve slips his tongue between their lips. Steve is kissing him. Steve goddamn Rogers is fucking kissing him. And there’s no crisis, no drugs to taint the experience, just the fact that they want each other. Bucky’s legs shake and he wraps his arms around Steve’s broad shoulders, tangling his fingers in the other boy’s short, blond hair as he kisses his back with abandon.

He’s not sure how long they spend kissing against the wall, but it’s long enough that the world seems to melt around them. His mind feels like it’s made of cotton and Steve is the only thing holding him up anymore. When Bucky finally pulls away to breathe, he can’t help the dazed smile that spreads across his face. “You…you kissed me…”

Steve blushes and fucking _giggles_ , murmuring, “I was trying really hard to try and tell you without, like, telling you, but I think I might’ve been too subtle.” He leans in for another kiss. “Either that or you’re just really clueless.”

“What the fuck are we still doing here?” Bucky laughs, still in half disbelief that this is even really happening. “Fuck this party. Fuck Homecoming. Let’s get out of here.”

The streets are dark as they stumble out of the building, each of them refusing to let go of the other’s hand. Bucky’s still drunk, he has to be. He has to be. Either that or he’s passed out somewhere in Sam’s house and this is all some kind of fucking dream.

“When did you know?” he asks as Steve laces their fingers together and kisses the back of back of Bucky’s hand. “And why didn’t you just tell me when I came out to you?”

“I was…nine? I think?” Steve mutters, ducking his head. “I was looking up some…inappropriate pictures online and my dad walked in on me. I was crying for him not to tell my mom what I was doing and for a minute I thought he was gonna beat me.” They slow down and the younger boy’s smile falters. “And then I turned ten and—”

“He left,” he finishes. “You thought it was your fault.”

“And into the proverbial closet I went.” They turn east and Steve shrugs a little before pulling Bucky into his body. “Tried not to think about it until I saw you come into that bathroom after I had that fight with Brock,” he says, fighting a smile. “I knew who you were, what you did for me. But I expected you to go. To just forget about me after you found out what I had done. But you didn’t. You stayed.”

Bucky blushes pink and there’s a warmth building in the pit of his stomach. He wants nothing more than to have Steve press him up against the wall and kiss the hell out of him, but he wants to drag Steve up into his apartment and up into his bedroom a little bit more than that.

“Your turn,” the blond says, bumping their shoulders together. “When’d you start to have a crush on me?” He makes some choked noise in the back of his throat and Steve lets out a laugh. “Oh come on, I am ten times better at hiding all of my emotions than you are. You’re an open book and that’s what I love about you, Bucky,” he whispers, threading his fingers through the ends of Bucky’s hair.

“If I say sixth grade, is it going to impress you or make me sound desperate?” Bucky whispers as Steve pulls him to a halt.

“It makes you fucking adorable,” he says, pulling Bucky into a careful kiss.

The world spins in circles around their central point.

The haze refuses to lift until they get to Bucky’s apartment building, both of them lingering on the steps like lovesick children. Steve’s hands twist in his hair and Bucky will remember how full the moon is for a long time. He can barely get the words out of his mouth before he chickens out. “Will you—” Bucky lets out a little laugh as Steve stumbles up a step to get closer to him. “Do you wanna maybe—I don’t know—Do you want to come upstairs with me? Stay the night?”

Steve reaches up and tucks a strand of Bucky’s hair behind his ear. “I want to, I really do. But I just need to take this slow, okay? Dr. Carter, my therapist, says that I shouldn’t jump into a relationship until I’ve gotten more settled into my sobriety,” he says sheepishly. “But she does know about you. I might’ve talked about you a lot.”

Bucky cups the younger boy’s face with both of his hands, stroking the soft parts under Steve’s jaw with his thumbs. “So this is it for us? One kiss and a big question mark about what comes next?”

“No. No, of _course not_ ,” he says, leaning in to press their foreheads together. “I just…I need you to be patient. It might take me a while to be me again.” A shy smile flits across his face and Steve lets out a shaky laugh. “But I might…I might be falling in love with you, Bucky Barnes.”

It feels like fireworks this time, when Steve wraps a gentle hand around the back of his skull and kisses him passionately. It’s more intimate this time. It’s more reassuring this time. That they’re together and they’re going to make it work, no matter how long it’s going to take.

His head spins as Steve pulls away, blinking dazedly. He barely registers the pad of the younger boy’s shaking thumb dragging over his bottom lip but it makes his legs weak either way. Bucky wants to whisper ‘I love you’ so much but Steve is already slipping back down the steps.

He’ll have other chances to say it.

“I’ll see you on Monday, Buck,” Steve says, breathless like they're still in a dream.

Bucky only nods, the dumb, hopelessly romantic smile still plastered across his face. He watches Steve disappear down the dark street, the blond giving him a small, half wave before he goes.

He’s not sure how long he stands out on the stoop just floating around on cloud nine, but he knows he never wants to come down.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

  
Saturday morning, Bucky wakes up to incessant banging on his bedroom door.

His heart is racing as he bolts out of bed, still half in the dream world. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and yawns as he opens the door. “Holy Moses, Mama, I’m com—” His voice dies the moment he sees Natasha standing in front of him, sobbing and shaking and completely unraveled. “Tasha?”

“I’m s-sorry,” she sobs, covering her mouth as tears stream down her cheeks. He’s never seen her cry before and it shakes Bucky to his very core. “I d-didn’t m-mean to, Bucky, I just—I was t-trying to—”

He pulls her into his bedroom and shuts the door quickly. “Tash, what the hell are you talking about?”

She collapses on his bed, head dropping into her hands. Her shoulders tremble with the force of her crying and Bucky grabs his phone. He has almost forty missed calls from Natasha and at least that many texts, if not more. His blood runs cold as she stammers again, “I’m s-sorry—I t-tried—d-didn’t m-mean to…” When Natasha looks up at him, her eyes are completely bloodshot, desperate beyond all measure. “I f-fucked up, Bucky…”

It takes her almost ten minutes to calm down enough for Nat to get her story out.

“I was drunk at Sam’s party and I don’t know, I saw you and Steve kiss. I didn’t—I didn’t even know Steve was gay. I took a picture because I was planning on asking you about it later, when you weren’t so…” She makes a vague hand motion and looks on the verge of throwing up. “I couldn’t find you later. I had a couple more drinks.”

“Tasha, what did you do?” Bucky asks, voice past the edge of demanding.

“I tried texting you the picture,” she says weakly, unable to meet his eyes. “I tried pulling your name up in my contacts, but I accidentally sent it to the wrong person.”

“Who did you…” He thinks through who could’ve possibly been next to him in Natasha’s contacts and his mind comes up blank. There are a handful of other guys named James in their class but none that would make Natasha panic like this. She struck fear into the hearts of most of the boys in the school and… _No_ …Bucky’s heart thuds in his chest and his mouth feels like it’s made out of cotton. “Natasha…I’m in your phone as Bucky, aren’t I?”

She nods, tears beginning to flow freely again.

Shit.

 _Brock_.

“You outed me…you outed Steve…” His bedroom spins around him as he sinks into his desk chair. “To Brock fucking Rumlow…”

“Buck, I am so sorry,” Natasha says, still distraught as she wraps her arms around herself. “You have to know that I would never do this on purpose.” Bucky nods absentmindedly as he sends a text to Steve.

_Call me when you can. Please._

“I think you need to go home, Tasha,” he whispers, numb with shock as he looks at her. This is his worst nightmare. If Brock knew, the entire school knew. She looks up at him, shaking her head frantically. “Natasha, please, I just need some time to deal with this, okay?”

“P-Please,” she sobs, her face falling into hysterics again. “P-Please, Bucky, d-don’t—”

“Tash, Tash, it’s okay,” he says, wrapping her up in her arms. Her face presses into his chest, tears muffled into his shirt. “I’m not mad, okay? I’m not. It was going to happen eventually, either now or in college. I just…I need to talk to Steve, okay? I need us to get ahead of it before Monday.” Bucky pets her red hair, mind racing at a mile a minute. “I’ll call you later tonight, okay? Just give me a couple hours.”

It takes a few more minutes of reassuring before he can get Natasha out of his apartment and he can even take a moment to breathe.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck_.

Bucky calls Steve a couple times before his mom drags him out of the house to Temple, but he can’t concentrate on anything but the fallout. Brock knew he was gay. Brock knew Steve was gay. And, as if things couldn’t get any worse, he can’t get a hold of Steve. His only saving grace is that Becca on a road game with her team and he doesn’t have to deal with her confronting him about it.

He does get a single text from her with the picture and the caption: _Call me :(_

They don’t get home until almost 5pm and his mom is still completely unaware that Bucky’s entire world is falling down around him. They’re about to sit down for dinner when the buzzer echoes in the living room. His mom motions to the door and says, “James, go down and see who it is, I don’t think we’re expecting anyone.”

Bucky nods, silently hoping that Steve has finally shown up.

But when he opens the downstairs door, it’s Sarah, not Steve that’s standing on his building’s stoop. He hasn’t seen her since the night at the hospital and she looks as ragged as she did the night of Steve’s overdose.

He tries not to let his voice shake as he says, “Hey, Mrs. Rogers, what’s up?”

“Have you heard from Steve at all?” Sarah asks, voice laced with worry. She tries to smooth down her hair as she looks down the street. “He didn’t come home Friday night and I thought he might have stayed with Sam but he wasn’t at his physical therapy appointment today. He hasn’t been answering my calls.”

He shakes his head, a couple strands falling free from his ponytail. Bucky knows he can’t tell her about the kiss, about the picture Natasha took because it would only make the situation worse. He’s not out and he doubts Steve was out to his mom, considering he hadn’t even brought it up to Bucky before he had kissed him. So Bucky shakes his head and says, “I haven’t, Mrs. Rogers. I can try calling him if—”

Tears suddenly flood her eyes and his stomach sinks. Her hands shake as she suddenly folds over, burying her face in her palms. “I’ve l-lost him again,” she sobs. “He’s relapsed, I j-just know it.”

“He didn’t have anything at the party, I promise,” Bucky says, crouching down in front of her. “I was with him the whole time until he dropped me off. I can make some calls, try and track him down, okay?” He puts a hand on the older woman’s shoulder, trying to reassure her as best he can. “We’ll find him.”

Finding Steve is easier said than done.

Natasha doesn’t remember seeing him after he and Bucky left and Sam ends up calling him twenty six times with no response. Bucky sends at least fifty texts and calls almost two dozen times before it starts to go straight to voicemail. He tries to maintain a calm exterior but, by the time the sun starts to set, his anxiety is off the charts. He feels like he did when Steve was in the hospital and no one would tell him if he was okay.

Bucky doesn’t sleep at all that night, only stares at his phone, hoping that Steve calls him back.

~~~

He spends the entirety of the next day calling anywhere and anyone who might have a clue where Steve would be and comes up completely empty.

His mind spirals into panic.

Steve was gone.

~~~

Bucky startles awake, chest heaving as he bolts upright in bed. Lightning cracks outside his widow and the rattling sound echoes again. A shadow crosses across his window and Bucky’s heart nearly stops in his chest when a hand slips against the glass.

And then he sees Steve’s face.

He nearly falls over his desk chair as he hurries to the window, unlocking and lifting the pane to let the younger boy in. Steve all but falls inside, soaking wet as he collapses on the floor. His body shakes as much as his voice does as he slurs, “I fucked up, I fu…” He sounds like he’s drunk, sounds like he’s been drinking for days, and he doesn’t meet his eyes when Bucky grabs his face, trying to get him to focus. “Stu...stupid stupid, should’ve—shouldn’t ever‘ve left you…” Steve sobs, closing his bloodshot eyes as tears begin to leak down his face.

“What did you take?” Bucky demands, fingers tightening in the wet strands of the blond’s hair. “Steve, look at me!”

A broken noise falls out of Steve’s mouth as he buries his face in Bucky’s neck. “‘m sorry, I didn’t—didn’t wanna—couldn’t…” Bucky rips his jacket open, digging though his pockets as Steve falls forward on his hands and knees.

His fingers curl around a plastic bag and his blood runs cold as he pulls the two dozen pills out of Steve’s coat and drops them on the floor. The air in his lungs feels stale as the room spins around those little white pills. “How many did you take?” he breathes, his vision blurring through his tears. “How—how many…”

Steve sucks in shallow breath after shallow breath, hyperventilating as his arms threaten to give out. Rainwater pools around him, leaching red around his palms and fingertips. “I d-didn’t…everyone kno…knows about…”

“ _Look_ at me!” Bucky growls, forcing him up on his knees and making Steve look him in the eye. “Steve, how many of those pills did you fucking take?! If you can’t answer me, I’m going to call 9-1-1 again.” The younger boy’s gaze goes unfocused and he whimpers low in the back of his throat. “Fucking answer me!” Bucky says, unsure when he became so desperate.

The blond shakes his head, chin quivering as he stammers, “T-Three…J-Just t-three oxy…I w-was scared it w-was g-gonna—gonna h-hurt…”

“You relapsed,” Bucky chokes, trying to stay as strong as he can even as his stomach sinks. “What was gonna hurt?” Steve’s breath still comes in triple but he shakes his head again, grabbing at Bucky’s sleep shirt in an attempt to steady himself. His fingers leave bloodstains on the white fabric and Bucky’s head swims. “Steve…What did you do?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, doesn’t want an explanation, as he begins to pull Steve’s coat off.

The jacket falls to the floor with a wet splat as Bucky peels it off Steve’s shivering frame. His gray t-shirt is stained with dirt and grime and who knows what else, but all Bucky can focus on is the blood that is gently weeping from the open wounds across Steve’s wrists. The cuts are deep and jagged, like there was too much hesitation to make a clean line. There are two along his right and three along the inside of his left arm. Steve barely meets his gaze, but Bucky can see the dark, desolate circles underneath his eyes and he knows exactly how this happened.

“You tried to kill yourself, didn’t you?” he whispers, wrapping his palms around Steve’s wrists to try and put pressure on the blood flow. “Because of what Brock did. Because you got outed.”

A weak, exhausted sob falls out of the younger boy’s mouth as a tear follows close behind. “I’m s-sorry,” Steve stammers, face pale and clammy. “I couldn’t—I was—I was s-scared.”

Bucky feels his breath hitch and his hands tighten around the wounds. “Come on, we need to get you cleaned up.”

He holds onto Steve the entire time, from making their way down the dark hallway to running his friend’s arms under the faucet until the water turns a faint pink. He’s too scared to let go again, now that he knows what will happen if he does. “When was the last time you had anything to eat or drink?” Bucky asks as he wraps thick pads of gauze around the cuts.

“Party,” Steve mutters, his throat clicking audibly as he swallows. “D-Didn’t have any m-money.” _But you still bought drugs,_ Bucky thinks, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. Something in his face must give him away though, cause Steve looks like he’s on the verge of another crying jag. “You’re mad at m-me,” he says, voice wobbling.

Letting out a short huff, Bucky tapes the ends of the wraps and leans in to touch their foreheads together. “You scared me,” he whispers, nose brushing against Steve’s cheek as he clasps the blond’s face with both of his hands. “You fucking scared the shit out of me and I thought you had overdosed again. So when you come home crying, _high_ , with your wrists slashed open and drugs in your pocket after having been God knows where for two days? Yeah, I’m angry. I’m allowed to be fucking angry at you.”

A shuddering breath from Steve shakes them both and his anger begins to turn inward.

Bucky sighs and pulls him close, trying to keep his voice steady as he says, “I’m sorry, I just—I thought I lost you. For good this time.”

Steve’s arms hang limply at his sides as he chokes out, “I know, I’m s-sorry…”

The sixteen year old stays like that, hunched over against the kitchen counter even as Bucky makes him a peanut butter sandwich and some sliced cheese. His body shakes from his still-wet clothes as Bucky pours a glass of milk. “Once we get back to my room,” he whispers, “I can help you get changed, okay?” Bucky’s stomach sinks when the only thing Steve does is nod numbly, eyes distant and vacant.

Bucky tries not to notice the slight limp in Steve’s walk as they head back to his room but it feels him with a deeply seated sense of dread.

The younger boy eats shakily, turned away from him the entire time. There’s water pooling on the floor underneath Steve as he shoves food into his mouth, washing it down quickly with the milk. He doesn’t turn around as he braces his hands on Bucky’s desk, shoulders beginning to tremble. “Please…Bucky, please just…please don’t be mad at me…”

“I’m not gonna be mad at you, Steve. _Fuck_. Just—just take those wet clothes off, you’ve gotta be freezing.”

Steve turns around and Bucky’s head spins.

The first bruise appears as Steve slides his jeans down over his thin hips. Dark red marks that have already begun to purple. Everything goes numb and Bucky can only watch as the rest come into the light. His throat tightens at the bite mark and fingertip-shaped bruises on Steves lower back, the dinner plate sized purple and blue patch on his right ribs. There are perfect handprints on both of the blond’s biceps and Bucky can only see the world through a red field of rage.

His voice comes out as a shaking whisper; the only world that manages to escape is a broken, “Steve…”

Bucky knows what happened, fucking knows. He’s not stupid, he’s not under some guise that him giving Steve everything he has is suddenly going to fix all of his problems. But God, _God_ , was Steve really that desperate to run from the world that it came down to this?

Steve doesn’t look at him, just lets the color drain from his face and sobs, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t—”

“Steve…”

“I didn’t—didn’t have any money—”

“Steve—”

“I…I didn’t—wasn’t like you. You would’ve—it wasn’t going to matter anymore—”

“ _Steve!_ ”

“I’m s-sorry, I couldn’t—I tried another way, I’m sorry, I’m s-sorry.” The younger boy shakes with the force of his crying as he wraps his arms right across his chest. Bucky’s hands tremble as he carefully places the pair of underwear and t-shirt on the bed next to Steve and drops down into the desk chair. He stares blankly ahead at the wall as Steve changes fully, the younger boy whimpering, “I’m s-sorry, I’m s-sorry,” over and over again until it turns into white noise like the blood rushing through Bucky’s ears.

“All because you kissed me,” he breathes as the first bitter tear he’s allowed himself falls down his cheek.

Steve stumbles and Bucky knows that the drugs are still coursing through his system, still clouding his words and judgement. “Love you, B-Buck…” the blond hiccups, rubbing at his face. “P-Please, don’t—”

“I think you need to go to sleep, Steve,” Bucky says bluntly, stomach clenching deep inside his gut. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

“Bucky, I-I—”

“I said go to sleep!” he shouts, as loud as he dares and far too harshly to be anything but downright callous. Steve freezes, his mouth falling open as a broken noise shatters against his tongue. He crawls up onto the bed without any further protest and curls his shaking body into the wall.

Bucky continues to stare at the wall as the tears bubble up in his chest. He can’t do this anymore. He can’t be the perfect person that was able to fix someone that didn’t want to be fixed—someone that would fuck their dealer to get drugs after declaring their love less than a day before. That’s who Steve was. That’s who Steve was going to be, no matter how hard Bucky fell for him.

~~~

He sits, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to do anything but stew and let that anger rot deep inside of him until every drop of blood is seeping with black rage. It’s almost five in the morning when he finally can’t take it anymore. Grabbing his clothes, Bucky changes quickly, muscles tight and jaw clenched hard enough to crack his teeth. He has to get out of here before he takes all of Steve’s drugs just to prove a point that it doesn’t solve a single fucking problem.

The bed stirs as Bucky grabs his coat and Steve raises his head with a groggy, “Buck?”

“I’m going to Tasha’s,” he snaps, pulling his boots and jacket on.

The younger boy’s eyes struggle to focus on him but Bucky can see the fear written across Steve’s face, plain as day. “Where...don’t go…” Steve slurs, struggling to push himself upright. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m not staying, Steve, not with you. I don’t give a shit if you stay here, go home, or drag yourself back to Alex, but I’m fucking leaving.” Bucky feels sick to his stomach just at the thought and he can’t even bring himself to look at the other boy. If he does, he’s going to lose what little composure he has. Venom drips from his chin as he snarls, “When I get home, I want you out. I want your fucking clothes gone, I want your fucking drugs gone, I want _you_ fucking gone, Steve.”

A short, wounded noise slips from Steve’s open mouth and he looks as paralyzed as Bucky was a few short hours ago. All the light slips from his eyes and tears cling to his eyelashes. “Ple…Please…”

“Don’t fucking talk to me again, Steve. I’m fucking _done_.”

Bucky shuts the door before he can turn around and think about what he’s done. The only thing powering him right now is his anger and he can’t let go of it, otherwise he’s going to crack. He’s going to crack and fall apart and throw himself out the goddamn window.

His apartment is silent, his mother still sleeping, and all he can hear is his own ragged breathing as he fumbles with the handle of the front door. It takes him almost a minute to get enough control of his body to get the doorknob to turn and stumble out into the hallway. Bucky’s heart is beating so hard in his chest that it starts to physically pain him. His ribs ache and it feels like there’s a crack beginning in his sternum. He can’t do this. He shouldn’t have to do this.

His rage builds and builds. Bucky’s pissed at Steve, pissed at every fucking drug in the world, but most of all, he’s pissed at himself. He didn’t matter to Steve, he never did. He was just some excuse that Steve used to distract himself until he decided to dive back into his drugs again.

Bucky was nothing more than a crutch and that’s what hurts the most.

The cold air hits his face as he steps out onto the stoop. He lets out a sharp breath and it feels like it’s the first time he’s exhaled since Steve started undressing. The sky is still a deep, dark blue-black and Bucky can still see some stars as he looks up toward the heavens. The world blurs around him and he covers his mouth with a shaking mouth.

“F-Fuck…”

His knees give out and he falls to the top step with a shuddering sob. He tangles his fingers in his hair and lets out a frustrated scream that echoes off the silent buildings like a gunshot. He’s lost everything he’s ever wanted, if he even had it in the first place.

~~~

“James? Jamie, it’s time for school—” Winifred freezes as she opens the door, going silent as she see the golden haired boy on the floor. There are half a dozen pills on the floor around his knees and he’s choking on sobs as he claws off the bloodied bandages around his wrists. His eyes are dazed and distant as he looks up at her. Winifred sucks in a heavy breath and says, “Steve, oh my god, what happened?”

He mumbles incoherently, shaking violently as he fumbles for the pills on the ground. Steve’s face is dripping with sweat and tears as she kneels in front of him, grabbing his face between her hands. “S-Sorry, m’s-sorry,” he chokes, whimpering as he weakly falls against her.

Winifred wraps her arms around the boy, holding him like he was her own, and rocks Steve gently in her lap. “Breathe, Steve, just take a deep breath, alright?” she whispers, looking around the room. “Where’s James? Where’s your phone, we need to call your mother.” She sets him down gently and pulls the pills from his crumpled hands, pushing them aside in a pile out of reach. “You need to see a doctor.”

Steve begins to hyperventilate, sinking further down to the ground until he’s a shivering, whimpering lump on James’ floor. “L-Left. Gone, B-Bucky’s g-gone,” he sobs feebly, unable to keep his eyes open.

“Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you back into bed, we’ll change your bandages,” Winifred says, trying not to let the boy hear how badly her voice wants to shake. She gets her elbows up under his armpits and drags Steve up onto her son’s bed, pulling the quilt up over his curled up form. “Let me call your mom and I’ll be right back.”

All Steve does is stare at the wall numbly, still mumbling through his ragged breathing.

Winifred paces back and forth in the kitchen for almost a minute before she pulls out her cellphone. After Steve had been spending more and more time at their apartment, Sarah had secretly slipped her a crisis plan—one that had been given to all of the adults that spent time around her son. And Winifred has read it more than enough times to know that this is the worst case scenario. He’s either back on drugs or off his medications and she knows that he’s already tried to hurt himself.

The line rings twice before Sarah answers with a panicked, “Winnie? Is everything all right? Has James heard from Steve?”

Winifred lets out a pained breath and covers her face with her hand. “He’s here, Sarah, but you need to come immediately,” she says quietly as tears prick her eyes. “I found him in James’ room with some pills. I don’t know if he’s taken anything, but he’s not in a good place.”

The woman on the other end of the line breaks into a terrible sob and says, “Please just tell me he’s okay.”

“I think you might need to call ahead and find somewhere that can take him for a 72 hour hold,” Winifred says. “He really needs help.”

“I’m already on my way.”

In the next half hour, she re-bandages Steve’s wrists and calms him down enough that he’s half asleep by the time the doorbell rings. She buzzes Sarah up and opens the door to find the short blonde woman in a state of disheveled panic. “It’s okay, Sarah,” she reassures. “He’s resting right now. He hasn’t said much and I haven’t been able to get ahold of James to find out what happened.”

Sarah combs through her messy hair with trembling hands and nods, biting her lip to hold back her tears. “How could I have let this happen, Winnie? How could I have missed all the signs of him spiraling again?” she whispers, leaning back against the door. “I shouldn’t have let him go to that party. I knew it was too soon. I shouldn’t have let him leave the house…”

“Sarah, he’s going to be okay. He just needs some time with some good doctors and they’ll figure out what we can’t,” Winifred says gently. “I know what it’s like to raise a teenage boy. They don’t tell you anything until it’s all too late.” She can’t imagine what Sarah’s going through but she knows of the sleepless nights that James had after Steve’s overdose and knows what it’s like to have a son feel so terribly hopeless.

Steve’s eyes are hooded and distant as they enter the bedroom and he’s too out of it to even look at them. His skin is pale and clammy as Sarah kneels at the side of the bed and takes his face between her hands. “Steven, look at me,” she says firmly, shaking him gently. “Did you take anything?”

He nods sloppily, unsteadily, and a single tear leaks out from the corner of his eye as he slurs, “m’sorry, mom…”

“Was it as much as last…time…” Her voice fails as she pulls the covers back and sees the bruises on his arms and hips, on his side where his shirt has ridden up. Sees his bandaged wrists that are still weeping blood. The air catches in her lungs and her eyes fill with tears before she can even realize what’s happening. She’s failed her only son, failed him in ways she can’t even begin to comprehend, and knows that, more importantly, she’s failed herself.

So all Sarah Rogers can do is hold him like she used to do when he was small and she was able to protect him from the evils of the world.

~~~

“Take the quilt, Sarah. It’s cold out there today,” Winifred murmurs as she adjusts the blanket around the sixteen year old’s shoulders. Steve’s head sags and his cheeks are wet with saltwater as he shies away from her touch. “When James gets home, I’ll try and figure out what happened,” she says, looking at Sarah. “Call me if you need anything. And I mean anything, you hear me?”

A yellow cab pulls up and there’s nothing either of the two mothers can do other than give each other a hug and silently pray for the other’s strength.

Steve curls up in the back seat, still too high to do much more than breathe, and leans his head against the cool window. His mother slips in next to him and takes his hand, holding on as if she dares let go of him again, he’ll sink away from her for good. “It’s only going to be 72 hours, Steven,” she hums and he can’t really hear her anyway. “We’ll get your meds straightened out, give you a chance to rest.”

He wonders if she’s disappointed in him. He’s disappointed in himself. Wants to just slip away, wants to fall into the darkness that’s at the back of his mind. He had driven Bucky away, lost everything he had managed to pull out of the pile of shit that was left of his life.

What did it matter, anyway?

It’s a familiar routine at this point. Handing over everything in his pockets, stripping down to nothing and stepping into a pair of plain underwear, sweatpants, and a t-shirt. His hands are shaking and he’s so cold, so goddamn tired. Steve remembers bits and pieces: his mother hugging him, crying; the nurses showing him to his room; the faint smell of Bucky on the quilt from the older boy’s bed.

He sleeps for nearly twenty four hours straight and wakes up twice to puke on the floor, unable to get out of bed to make it to the toilet. They have to drag him to the clinic where he gets tested, holding on to the metal table with shaking hands as they swab every intimate place he can think of. The tears stream down his cheeks and he chokes on sobs he refuses to let free, gritting his teeth in silence.

He takes his medication without complaint.

He goes to group therapy four times a day without complaint.

He takes responsibility, without complaint, because he only has himself to blame.

~~~

“James Buchanan Barnes, I hope you have a good explanation for how I found Steve in your room this morning!”

He freezes in the doorway, still nauseous from when he stormed out on the younger boy before school, and crosses his arms. He hadn’t gone to school, hadn’t done anything but hide out in Natasha’s room while the fallout exploded around him. “I don’t want to talk about it, Mama,” he snaps, heading off toward his bedroom. She grabs his elbow and he all but rips himself free. “I’m not talking to you about this!” Bucky shouts, stamping his foot, stomach rising high in his throat as tears burn his eyes.

“I find that poor boy in hysterics on your bedroom floor, surrounded by drugs, with his wrists bandaged, and you are nowhere to be found!” his mother shouts, motioning wildly. “What the hell happened?!”

His chest feel so painfully tight that Bucky can barely breathe. He feels trapped, like a wild animal caught in a snare and he’s two seconds from beginning to gnaw through skin and bones just to free himself. Any explanation he has for what happened, for what he did, is going to boil down to the fact that Steve kissed him and then the wall Bucky has so carefully placed around himself will offer no protection. He shakes his head. “Mama, please…”

“I want to give you the benefit of the doubt because you saved Steve’s life last year, but the fact that you decided to abandon him when he clearly needed you really makes me question your judgement, James,” she says and he’s never heard his mother sound so disappointed in him before.

It’s just the icing on the cake.

His breathing hitches and all the anger he buried down to get through the school day begins to bubble up his throat. “He chose those drugs over me!” Bucky shouts, the first tears spilling past his eyelashes. “He chose all of that over me, Mama! He could’ve just come home, come back to me and I would’ve fixed _everything_! But _I_ wasn’t enough!”

She goes quiet and Bucky feels his face grow hot with shame. His mother’s voice is soft and painfully tender as she whispers, “Jamie…”

“He _kissed_ me, Mama,” he sobs, face suddenly crumpling in anguish. “He kissed me and told me he loves me.” He can’t even look at her, can’t even begin to think about the look of shock on her face. All Bucky wants to do is crawl into the smallest, darkest hole he can find and just hide there until he’s nothing but a pile of bones. His hands shake as he scrubs them over his face, shuddering through another broken cry.

“You’re…you’re not…”

“I’m gay, Mama,” Bucky chokes quietly, looking up at the ceiling to keep from breaking down completely. “I’m gay and Steve and I…we were…I thought I could really be enough for him…”

He flinches when he feels his mother’s arms suddenly wrap around his body and it’s all too much. The tears flow freely as he sags against her, sobbing uncontrollably. Her hand combs through his hair and Bucky feels sick to his stomach that he had hidden his whole life from the one person who had always been there for him. “I will always love you, no matter what,” she whispers, holding onto him like it’s all that matters now. “You’re my son and nothing is changing that, but you need to explain to me what happened this morning.”

“I can’t see him again, Mama,” Bucky says through gritted teeth, still trembling. “I never want to see him after what he did.”

“You can’t mean that.”

He pulls free from his mother’s grip and shakes his head, features twisting in disgust. “You want to know what happened? Tasha took a picture of us kissing at Sam’s party and tried to send it to me. But she sent it to someone else and now the whole school knows about us,” Bucky spits, quickly wiping his face with the heel of his hand. “But I didn’t run away from this. I stayed and watched it all blow up in my face! Steve just left. Steve left me to deal with all of it on my own while he went and got fucking high!”

His mother lets out a breath in disbelief and grabs his arm again, exclaiming, “He’s sixteen years old, Jamie! He’s just a kid!”

“ _I’m_ a fucking kid, Mama!” Bucky shouts, his heartbreak burning off to leave only the dark ash of his rage. “I had to sit there and find out that he fucked his dealer to get drugs and pretend like everything was fine! Like it didn’t kill me to know that I meant absolutely nothing to him.” They both fall silent and he can’t look at his mother’s shocked face. Her hand falls from his arm and Bucky falls back against the door.

“James…”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he whispers, his breath hitching painfully. “Just—just leave me alone, okay?”

He pushes past her, stumbling down the hall into his bedroom and slamming the door shut. Bucky lets out a shuddering breath and suddenly the dam breaks into a million pieces. He sinks down to the floor, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as a sob punches out of his chest. This isn’t fair. He never asked for this.

All he wanted to do was be fucking happy.

~~~

Natasha treats him to Starbucks and they eat half a dozen croissants each while Bucky silently chugs down his iced coffee. She doesn’t ask what happened with Steve, but the fact that he was still crying on her front steps when she came down to get him was enough tell her exactly what he was running from.

“You gonna be okay?” she whispers as she kicks their toes together.

Bucky’s face hurts from all the crying he’s done this morning and all he wants to do is go back home and bury his face in his pillow and fall asleep and never wake up. But then Steve might still be there, might still be in his bed, and even if he isn’t, everything is going to smell like him. He’s going to have to burn the fucking thing, along with every happy memory he has of Steve. It was all up in flames anyway.

“Bucky?”

“Tasha, please,” he chokes out, clenching his eyes shut. “Just—just _stop_.”

She nods and shoves her hands in her sweatshirt pockets. She doesn’t say anything else as they leave the coffee shop and head for school.

It feels like the entire school has eyes on him. Everyone stops talking as they pass and Bucky hasn’t been able to breathe since they walked through the doors. Even the teachers are glancing at him and he’s not sure how he’s going to get through the rest of the day, let alone the rest of the year like this.

Steve doesn’t show up to school again and Bucky’s not sure whether he’s heartbroken or relieved.

He drowns out all the noise around him and puts his head down in every class he can. Sitting at the back of the class, he wonders what he’s going to do now. For the last three months, his entire life has been wrapped up in saving Steve that he doesn’t know what he’s going to do now that that part of his life is over.

Where does he go from here?

“Do you wanna stay at my house tonight?” Clint asks as they walk to his van. “Nat’s already having a sleepover because we’ve got a calculus project to finish up and we could use an excuse to order more pizza.”

Bucky shakes his head and says, “No, my mom’ll be—” He’s cut off by a horn honking loudly and looks around, making a face. A man sitting in a black Oldsmobile waves at him and honks rapidly. Bucky raises his middle finger and shouts, “Fuck off, asshole!”

The man gets out of the car and asks, “James Barnes, right? Get in the car, your mom wants me to take you to a meeting.”

Approaching the car slowly, Bucky waves off Natasha and Clint. He crosses his arms and looks at the older man. “Who the fuck are you and how do you know my name. How the hell do you know my mom?”

The dark-haired man holds his hand out and says, “Tony Stark. I’m Steve’s NA sponsor.”

Bucky shakes his hand and crosses his arms across his chest. “That’s fine, but I don’t want anything to do with Steve anymore. You were apparently absent through his whole breakdown so let me just catch you up a little,” he says. “He kissed me at a party and my best friend accidentally outed us to the whole school. Steve ran off, fucked his old dealer to get drugs, _relapsed_ , and then tried to kill himself. And when none of that worked, he came crawling back to me expecting me to fix it like I fix everything.”

Tony just raises an eyebrow and asks, “Are you done?” Bucky huffs a little and scowls as the older man rolls his eyes. “Enough with the teenage angst. I know all this shit already. Now get in the car or we’re gonna be late.”

He slips into the bench seat next to Tony and fumbles with the seatbelt. There’s a kid’s car seat in the back and old electronics on the floor. Who the fuck was this guy?

“So kid, I know you’re having a pretty shitty couple days but I wanted to give you the lowdown on what’s going on,” Tony says, pulling out of the school lot. “Your mom called me yesterday and gave me the full story about what happened with you and Steve. I called Sarah and asked about the kid and she told me that he’s in the psych ward.” Bucky’s stomach drops and his breath hitches as he stares out the window silently. “He’s on a 72-hour hold for right now but Sarah thinks he might be there for at least a week, if not longer.”

His mouth and throat feel dry as he mutters, “I don’t care what he does. Not after what he did to me.”

“Hate to break it to you, but you’re not the only person in the world that’s fallen in love with an addict,” the older man says, winding through the Brooklyn streets. “Everyone that struggles with drugs has a laundry list of people they’ve hurt, including me and I’ve been sober for eight years.”

“He fucking _relapsed_ ,” Bucky spits, tears burning at his eyes again.

“Yeah, and so did I.” Tony gives him a pointed look as they stop at a stoplight and Bucky tries not to let his heartbreak win over his anger. “I was sober for two years before I married my wife and she got pregnant. I couldn’t handle being a dad. I could sit here and complain about my daddy issues, but in reality, I just wasn’t where I should’ve been. I started using again,” he says. “I tried to pick my four month old daughter up from daycare high as a kite. They called the cops on me and my wife threatened to leave me. She probably should’ve.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“Because she knew that’s what happens with addicts. She’s forty-five and has like, four degrees. You’re a seventeen year old dude and, having been a seventeen year old dude at one point, I know you’re dumb as shit.” The car goes quiet as Tony pulls up next to a library and parks. “90 percent of people with opioid addiction relapse within a year. I made it two. The first six months are the hardest though. Steve put up a _hell_ of a fight and I’m not going to let you act like he didn’t, you understand me, kid?”

Bucky nods shakily, heart climbing so high into his throat that he can’t make out any words. He fumbles with his hands, picking at his nails. It takes him almost a minute before he finally chokes out, “I didn’t know.”

“Again, because you’re dumb as shit,” Tony says, a half grin on his face. “Here’s what’s gonna happen though. “You and I are gonna go into this library and you’re gonna sit here and listen to every single person talk about going through the exact same thing that you are. And then you’re going to go home and you’re going to replay that in your head for hours; you’re not going to be able to sleep tonight, I guarantee you that much.”

He nods again and flinches a little when the older man puts a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m not saying that you have to forgive Steve. I know there’s a lot that’s going on between you that’s not just about the drugs,” Tony says quietly. “But I also know how much he talked about you and how happy you made him. I want you to promise me that you’re going to listen to what these people are going to say and actually think about it. Think about what you want, not just what you feel like you owe to Steve, okay? He’s a strong kid and he’s got a great support system. If you don’t want to be a part of that, that’s fine, but you need to make an informed decision, not just a gut reaction.”

Bucky runs a hand through his hair and ties it back with the black hair tie that sits around his wrist. “Fine,” he whispers, letting out a heavy sigh. “Okay, I’ll go.”

It goes exactly like Tony said it would.

He sits in the circle of chairs, unable to hide, unable to sink into oblivion, and _listens_. Listens to the mom cry about her son relapsing for the third time. Listens to the daughter talk about her dad being sober for the first time in years. Listens to the man talk about his brother’s addiction. Listens to the boy not much older than him talk about being unsure if his boyfriend is an addict or not.

By the end, Bucky can’t hold back his tears.

He failed Steve and he failed himself. He had no idea what he was getting into and might’ve made Steve’s recovery even harder for him. Nobody makes him share anything and Bucky is grateful for that, but it doesn’t change the fact that Steve is sitting in a psych ward, alone, because Bucky had no fucking clue what he was doing.

He throws up in the bushes on the way out of the meeting.

“Let it out, kid,” Tony says, patting his back gently. “First meeting’s always the toughest. If it makes you feel any better, Steve hurled after his first one too.”

Bucky wipes his mouth on the back of his arm and leans against the side of the library. “I fucked up,” he chokes. “I fucked up and I don’t know how to fix any of it. What the hell do I do now?”

“Take some time. Breathe. Stop trying to see the finish line. This is a marathon, not a sprint; if you treat it like one, you’re going to burn out fast, okay?” the older man says firmly. “I was in Steve’s shoes once, and I know how guilty he’s feeling right now. All he needs right now is to know that he’s got people in his corner with him.”

“I just wish I could do more. After what I said—”

“You can’t fight the battle for him. You can’t even get in the ring for him. I know you want to make amends, but it has to be on his terms, you got it? He needs to be stable, sober, and on the right meds before you should even be apologizing to him, otherwise it’s going to mean nothing.” Tony hands him a stick of gum which Bucky takes gratefully. “I know waiting for someone to help themselves is the hardest part but sometimes it’s the best thing you can do.”

Bucky wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand and shoves the minty gum in his mouth, trying to keep the bile from rising in his throat. “Thank you, Tony. Thank you for all of this.”

“No problem. I’m kind of fond of Steve; he reminds me a lot of myself when I was younger. Just don’t you dare tell him I said any of that or hell hold it over my head for months,” he says as they walk back to the car. “Come on, we’ll grab some fries before I drop you off. Get some food back in you.”

As they climb in the car and head off toward Williamsburg, Bucky hopes that Steve is getting the help he needs—the help Bucky can’t give him.

He just wants Steve to get better.

~~~

It’s been three days since Steve was checked into the psych ward and it never seems to get easier. Bucky feels trapped, feels like a rat in a cage, unable to concentrate at school and finding himself just pacing around his room at home.

The immediate anger diminished quickly and overwhelming guilt has taken its place. He can’t even look at himself in the mirror without wanting to throw up. He hates everything that he’s done, everything he is, what he let himself become. Bucky just wishes he could turn back time until it was last week and life could just go back to the way it used to be.

He’s picking at his breakfast when his mom peeks her head into the dining room. “James, can I talk to you for a minute?”

He drops the piece of toast on his plate and sighs, refusing to meet her eyes. “Fine, whatever.”

His mom sits in the chair next to him and nudges his toes with her own. “Sarah called. She said she’s going to go visit Steve this afternoon at the hospital. She was wondering if you’d like to come with. We can even pick you up from school if you’d like,” she says, putting her hand on his arm.

“He’s not going to want to see me, Mama,” Bucky mutters, sniffing a little as he scrubs a hand over his face. “Not after what I said to him.”

“I think it’ll be good for both of you, even just seeing each other,” Winifred says. He wants to go, wants to see Steve healthy and back on his meds, but he isn’t sure what he’d do if Steve didn’t want to see him. Bucky wouldn’t blame him, but it would still break what’s left of his heart. His mother looks at him seriously and pushes his hair out of his face. “Sweetheart, Sarah really wants you to come. She thinks it’ll be really good for Steve to see you. So he knows you didn’t really abandoned him.”

There’s a lump in his throat that he tries to get words around and all Bucky manages is a broken, “Okay.” He shoves his nearly untouched plate away and grabs his backpack off the floor. “I gotta go, Mama.”

He gets through three periods before he sprouts an unholy migraine and spends the rest of the school day in the nurse’s office, buried under blankets and shrouded in darkness. His stomach twists in knots and he’s counting down the hours until his mom comes to take him to see Steve again.

She brings him some headache medication and some juice and Bucky falls asleep in the backseat of her car, lulled by his mother’s soft humming as she sings along to the radio.

The psych ward is quiet enough to hear his own heartbeat in his ears and the fluorescent lights make everything around him hazy. Bucky can feel his mother’s hand in between his shoulder blades and he concentrates on just putting one foot in front of the other until he sees Sarah pacing around the waiting room. Her face relaxes when she sees him and she rushes forward to give Bucky a hug. “Thank you so much for coming, James. You have no idea how much this means for me.”

“I wanted to be here,” Bucky says quietly. “I want to see him, Mrs. Rogers. I need to tell him how sorry I am.”

They follow a nurse through the halls until they reach a small room with a few chairs around a table. His heart drops into his stomach when he sees the shell of the boy he loves sitting in one of those chairs. Steve’s face is pale, void of any color, and his eyes are vacant as he stares at the tabletop. He’s dressed in a rumpled T-shirt and sweatpants. His arms hang limply in his lap and his body seems just slumped against the back of the chair. He doesn’t even look up when Sarah and Winifred step into the room, Bucky hanging back in the doorway.

“Steven?” Sarah whispers, sitting in the chair next to her son. “Baby, it’s Mom. How’s it going?”

His head turns toward her but Steve’s eyes struggle to focus on her.

“The doctors are still working on his medication adjustment,” the nurse says from the corner of the room. “He’s also still coming down from the diazepam he’s been on while on suicide watch. He’s still a little groggy.”

Bucky’s breathing hitches in his chest and his cheeks are suddenly wet. His vision goes blurry as Steve mumbles something incoherent. Nausea bubbles up his esophagus and he stumbles back out of the room, covering his mouth with his hand. He can’t stand there and look at Steve when he’s like that, completely out of it and barely conscious.

Steve wouldn’t even know who he was.

“Jamie?” his mother says, following him out into the hallway. Bucky shudders through a sob and shakes his head frantically. Winifred pulls him close and combs a hand through his hair. “Sweetheart, it’s okay, what’s wrong?

“That’s n-not Steve,” Bucky chokes. “I can’t t-talk to him like t-that, Mama!”

“James, it’s—”

“He doesn’t even know his mom, how the hell is he going to know me?” Bucky says, voice rising as it begins to steady. “Mama, I could apologize until I pass out but he wouldn’t even be able to understand anything I said.” His bottom lip quivers and the tears threaten to begin a new rush. “Please d-don’t make me go back in there.”

His mother tightens the grip she has on him and shushes him with a gentle, “Okay, James. I won’t make you go back in there. Let’s go back home.”

~~~

Bucky goes to a few more Nar-Anon meetings with Tony over the next couple weeks before he finally gets the text that Steve is out of the psych ward and back home resting. He asks if he can come see him and the only reply he gets is, _‘Give him a couple days.’_

Steve doesn’t return to school afterwards but Sam mentions that he was over at the Rogers’ house helping Steve get settled and says that he’s doing okay. Bucky wants to pry, wants to ask if Steve had asked about him at all, but he stays quiet. Because it’s not about him anymore and he has to remember that.

Bucky deals with the heckling from some of his classmates that continues until Natasha slams Jack Rollins into a locker and threatens to stuff him in the 1x3 foot space, piece by piece, unless Bucky was left alone. To her credit, he doesn’t hear a single word about the picture after that.

Another a week goes by until Sarah finally calls him.

“James, Steve’s having a really good day and it might be a good time to come over and visit for a little while if you’re willing to,” she says, voice crackling and echoing on the other side of the line.

“Is he going to want to see me?”

“I think he’ll realize how much he misses you the moment he sees you,” she says and suddenly Bucky’s heart is beating fast in his chest. Sarah’s voice softens and it reminds him so much of when he came out to his mom that he almost wants to cry. “Steven told me about you two, when he got home. He told me about kissing you and that he’s gay, James. I want you to know that, if Steven was going to fall in love with anyone, I’m glad it was you. You’re a good person, even if you’ve made some mistakes.”

“Mrs. Rogers, I’m not a good person, you know what I did to Steve,” he chokes out, sitting down on his bed, phone pressed to his ear. “I don’t even know if he’s even going to want anything to do with me now.”

“Please just come see him. He’s so much better now and I know how much it’ll mean when you show up,” she says. “Promise me that you’ll come.”

“Okay, I’ll head over after dinner.”

It’s dark by the time he gets out on of the house, bundling up against the growing cold. It’s almost the middle of November and the temperature was quickly dropping. He shoves his hands in his pockets and starts the walk to Steve’s house. It’s only eight blocks but it goes by slowly, every step feeling like Bucky’s dragging his feet toward the gallows.

He thinks back, to almost a year ago, when Steve had no idea who he was and Bucky wonders if that had been better. But then he remembers that Steve was killing himself with drugs, with his drinking, and would have ended up dead if Bucky hadn’t found him that night in the locker room. And Bucky would’ve been in the closet, alone and unloved, for who knows how long. Maybe their lives were meant to intertwine for a reason. Maybe they were meant to save each other.

Sarah buzzes him up into the building and lets him into the small living room with a quiet, “He’s in his bedroom finishing up some homework.”

“Does he know I’m coming?” he asks as he strips his jacket off, pulling the sleeves down on his sweater.

“No, I thought it would be a good surprise for him,” she says with a gentle smile. She tucks a loose strand of hair behind Bucky’s ear and lets out a soft sigh. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Bucky hesitates at Steve’s bedroom door. His hand is raised and ready to knock, but he still hesitates. He takes a deep breath and pulls courage deep from his soul and raps his knuckles against the wood. There’s a muffled, “Come on in, Mom!”

The hinges creak as he turns the doorknob and slowly slips into younger boy’s bedroom.

“I’m almost done with this—” Steve trails off as he raises his head and meets Bucky’s eyes. His mouth falls open and his pen falls from his hand. A smile pulls on Bucky’s mouth when he sees the bright pink flush back in Steve’s cheeks, the sharp wildness back in his blue-green eyes. He looks healthy again.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky whispers.

Steve stands on shaking legs but doesn’t move any closer. He seems too in shock to move closer or just too heartbroken to come near. “You said you didn’t want to see me again,” he says, mouth pressing into a thin line. “Why are you here?”

Bucky shrugs, crossing his arms tight across his chest. “I wanted to see you, now that you’re out of the hospital,” he says, making sure to give the other boy his space. “You look good.”

“Got my meds under control,” Steve mutters, shifting from one foot to the other awkwardly. “They put me on a couple more to help manage my anxiety and bipolar disorder. Seems to be helping a little more than my previous ones.” Bucky nods and isn’t sure when he stopped breathing. They stand there for a moment, still and unyielding. Steve tries his best to deflect the heaviness of the moment as he motions to his books. “I’m taking the rest of the year off, by the way. In case you don’t see me at school.”

“You doing it online?”

“Yeah. I’m coming back for my senior year.”

“Brock will be gone by then. You’ll have it a hell of a lot easier,” Bucky says. _But I’ll be gone too_ , he thinks, his stomach sinking.

Steve seems to be reading his mind because he finally moves closer, covering only half the space between them before stopping again. “Bucky, I just…” His voice fails and his hand begins to shake just the slightest bit. “I just want to say I’m sorry for everything that happened between us. I shouldn’t have kissed you at that party. It was stupid and I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Why are you apologizing for kissing me? That’s not why I said all those things to you,” Bucky says and shakes his head. “Steve, I fucking loved it when you kissed me, but then when everything was falling down around us, you chose going to get drugs over coming and talking with me. I would’ve helped you deal with it. Hell, Natasha, Sam, and Clint already have been even if you’re not at school.” Steve ducks his head, chewing on the inside of his lip. “You said that you loved me and then tried to leave me, Steve. How the hell was I supposed to feel?”

“I’m sorry,” the blond says weakly. “I know I fucked up.”

He blinks back tears and closes the remaining space between them, wrapping his arms around Steve’s bulky frame. The younger boy sags against him, all of the air leaving his lungs as a broken, shuddering sigh. They stand like that for a few minutes, just silently clinging to each other before Bucky can finally bring himself to whisper, “I _missed_ you.”

“I missed you too.”

They climb out Steve’s window and sit on the fire escape for a little more privacy. Bucky knows that Sarah wouldn’t spy on her son but, after what they’ve all been through, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was lingering outside in the hallway.

The sun is beginning to set, covering the city in a hazy, orange glow. It creates an orange halo around Steve’s head as they stick their legs through the cold bars of the railing. The temperature has dropped a couple degrees and their breath comes in clouds. Bucky doesn’t realize he’s staring until Steve catches him and asks, “What?”

“You look really good, Steve,” he mutters, forcing a smile out.

It’s the truth. The dark circles under his eyes are finally gone, his skin doesn’t look as ashy. His cheeks have filled out a little. Bucky wants to run his hands under Steve’s sweatshirt and see if the softness in his stomach has returned. But right now, he’s not even sure if he can bear touching him at all again.

A small, forced, half-smile crosses Steve’s face.

They sit in silence as the sun creeps down over the buildings. Bucky shifts a little, picking at the hem of his sweater before he finally says, “There’s something else I want to tell you. I met your sponsor, Tony. My mom had him take me to a Nar-Anon meeting the night after you went to the hospital. He told me about how common what you did was and it really hit home for me.”

He gets no response but watches Steve curl in on himself.

“I’m sorry for leaving that morning,” he says softly, their feet dangling over the edge of the fire escape. Steve chews on the inside of his lip but doesn’t say anything. “I realize now that it wasn’t your fault. Relapses happen and I shouldn’t have blamed you for it all. You were just as scared as I was. Probably more because everyone was already on your case about your overdose.”

Steve sniffles quietly and wipes his eyes with the hem of his sweatshirt sleeve. “It was my fault. I wasn’t myself,” he croaks, still not looking at Bucky. “I had…f-fuck…I had stopped taking my psych m-meds, Bucky. About two weeks before homecoming.”

Bucky’s head spins and he feels like he’s going to throw up. He can think of a million excuses but not one good reason and the only word that escapes his throat is a sharp, “ _Why_?”

The blond shakes his head and shrugs, a sound falling out of his mouth that sounds more like a sob than the laugh it’s supposed to be. “I’ve gained twenty five pounds since they adjusted my meds after my coma,” Steve mutters, pulling his arms tighter around himself. “I hated everything about myself, hated how I looked, and I couldn’t imagine someone like you wanting me. I was desperate to try anything.” When Bucky glances over at him, Steve’s face is splotchy and swollen from how hard he’s trying not to cry. “I just wanted to be the person I used to be.”

“Steve, I didn’t even notice that you’ve gained any kind of weight other than the fact that you looked healthy for once,” Bucky says, reaching out and resting his hand on the small of the younger boy’s back. “And I don’t care what your body looks like. I know everyone used to care about that but I don’t know why you thought it would bother me.”

“Well, if I was thinking straight, I wouldn’t have gone off my meds, now would I?” Steve snaps, almost a little too harshly.

“I’m not trying to pick a fight with you, Steve, I’m trying to fucking apologize!” Bucky runs his hands through his hair and lets out a frustrated groan. The silence descends over them like a weight on their chests and he’s not sure where to go from here. They’ve both made so many mistakes and Bucky doesn’t really know how they can go back to whatever they had before it all went to shit. “It doesn’t matter why you relapsed or why you ran off or what you did to try and get drugs. When you came to me, especially after trying to kill yourself, I should have been there for you and I wasn’t.”

Steve shudders again and suddenly lets out a harsh sob, burying his face in his trembling hands. The wounds were still open, still raw and festering, and it makes Bucky’s heart sink into his stomach. “I got the first text right after I dropped you off,” he says weakly, muffled into his palms. “I felt like screaming. Brock said Natasha had sent it to him and all I could think about was the idea that this—that you and I—had all just been one big fucking joke.”

His face looks worn and drawn as he shifts on the fire escape.

“I thought that you were involved in sending it to Rumlow. I panicked. I took the bus from my house out to Queens and got a hotel. I locked myself up there until Saturday afternoon. Didn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. I felt myself slipping.”

“Why didn’t you call your sponsor?” Bucky asks. “Or your therapist? Hell, even your mom was looking for—”

“I thought, if I couldn’t trust you, why the hell did I think I could trust anyone else? Was everyone in on it? I couldn’t think straight, Buck.” Steve’s hands shake and his eyes are glassy as he looks up at the sky. “I watched my phone die as screenshots from guys I played with started getting sent to me. They were calling me ‘faggot’ and ‘homo’ and everything I had been running from. My thoughts got dark. That’s why I went to Alex and tried to kill myself.”

“I can understand if you don’t want anything to do with me after this, because I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Steve,” he says softly, his fingers running up Steve’s spine. “But all I want to know is that you’re going to be okay. That you’re safe, that you’re sober.“

Something deep inside him begins to unknot when Steve nods weakly, scrubbing his sleeves over his face. “I haven’t had anything since that night,” Steve whispers brokenly, his breathing beginning to even again. “After getting…after what they had to do when I went to the psych ward, I can’t…” He finally meets Bucky’s eyes and swallows thickly. “I can’t be that person again. I n-need to be better.”

Bucky reaches over and takes one of Steve’s hands, lacing their fingers together tightly. “If you let me,” he murmurs, “I’d like to try and help.”

Steve shakes his head and a moment of panic washes over him. “Buck, I—” The blond chews on the inside of his lip again and sighs. “I didn’t need you in my life to get sober and I don’t need you to keep myself sober,” Steve says, looking at their entwined fingers. “But, God, it sure was a hell of a lot easier when you were at my side.”

“I’m not leaving again,” Bucky whispers, his voice shaking with regret. “I love you, Steve. I’m never going to leave you for as long as you’ll have me.”

There’s a painful silence where he almost wonders if this is the end. They may love each other but is it going to be enough at the end of the day? Is it even worth it to try after what they’ve done to each other and themselves? But Steve turns to him with a gentle, hesitant smile, cheeks flushing the softest shade of rose, and asks, “Do you really mean that? You love me?”

“More than anything in the goddamn world,” he says, pulling his hand free and cupping Steve’s jaw in his palms. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Bucky kisses the other boy tenderly, like he’s scared that Steve might break apart under his touch. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows Steve is made of steel and ceramic and iron and glass. Everything delicate and everything stronger than Bucky will ever know. So he deepens the kiss, making silent vows and reassurances that it will never be like this again.

Their past will not determine their future.

~~~

_10 months later_

~~~

“Umm...hi everyone. My name is Steve and I’m an addict.”

There are murmurs of greetings as he picks at the velcro on his shoulder sling. He takes a deep breath and catches Bucky’s calm, warm eyes from the crowd and suddenly feels all the anxiety leave his body.

“I’m now ten months sober and it’s the longest I’ve ever been clean since I was twelve years old,” Steve says, quietly letting out a breath. “It’s scary to think about because of the fact that I lost almost four years of my life to drugs. And I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you just turn seventeen, it’s almost a quarter of your life.” He’s the youngest person in the room that has shared by at least five years but it’s stopped mattering so much now.

“I used to think that I needed to be this other person. Someone that had it all and had it all together without complaining about what it was doing to my mental health. And I started overcompensating for what I was doing to myself by taking drugs. I buried who I was and put on this mask and pretended like it wasn’t killing me inside.” He chews on the inside of his lip and shrugs his good shoulder a little. “And then I overdosed and nearly died.”

“I was in the showers at school and everything just became too much. I took a handful of pills and just tried to forget about it all. I passed out and one of my classmates found me,” Steve mutters, looking down at the ground. “We weren’t friends, we had barely spoken to each other. But he saved my life and called 9-1-1. For the longest time I wanted to hate him for it—I didn’t ask to be saved, why couldn’t he have just let me die?” His face flushes and a small smile flits across his lips. “And then I did the stupidest possible thing I could’ve done and went and fell in love with him.”

There’s scattered laughter around the room and Bucky’s wide grin is worth all of it.

“I didn’t think I even deserved to be loved at that point. I had a brain injury from my overdose—nerve damage, seizures, memory issues, you name it. I felt worthless because I wasn’t who I used to be, because I wasn’t the best anymore.” Steve fidgets with the wrist strap on his sling again and feels his face burn. His throat feels tight and his eyes burn with the force of the tears threatening to fall out. He sniffs a little and wipes his eyes, muttering, “And then I got outed at school. My entire life felt like it was imploding on me and I couldn’t do it anymore. I relapsed. Tried to kill myself. I wanted to blame everyone but myself but it eventually all caught up with me.”

He looks around the room at the quiet faces patiently watching him and takes a deep breath. “But I’m here. And I’m better, whatever that means, I guess. I’m starting my senior year of high school and have tutors lined up that are used to dealing with delays like mine. I lost out on my offers to Stanford and Harvard but I got accepted at a local community college close to home. It’s close enough that I can take the train.”

Steve lets out a soft chuckle and meets Bucky’s eyes again. His heart swells when he sees the painfully proud look in his boyfriend’s eyes, all guts and glory and pure, unadulterated love.

“I know the road to recovery seems long sometimes. Sometimes you’ll feel as if no one has your back or even understands what you’re going through. But I promise, there are people standing by your side who love you, even if you don’t realize it,” he says, holding back his smile. “Thanks for listening and thanks for letting me share my story. I hope it’s helped someone.”

There’s scattered clapping but all Steve can hear is Bucky’s whistling, over enthusiastic as always.

He could live a thousand lifetimes and never be this happy.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Comments and kudos, as always, are appreciated immensely!


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